


On Fractal Gears and Fated Crystal Fears

by EmuSam



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Africa, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Asia, Boats and Ships, Canon-Typical Violence, Engineer Tony Stark, Ethics, Family, FrostIron - Freeform, Gen, Gratuitous Conversation, Humor, Hydra, If You Squint - Freeform, Kidnapping, Loki Does What He Wants, Loki is Schroedinger's Villain, Magic Tech, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Pirates, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Pride, Sailing, Slave Trade, Snark, Technobabble, Technopathy, Travelogue, Water Rights, politicking, pseudo-historical Taipei, water fights
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-10 13:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 55,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3292955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmuSam/pseuds/EmuSam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony can't remember what law he broke, Loki can't get his ship fixed, the <i>Avenger</i> can't catch up to the crew of the <i>Jormungandr</i>, and if Hydra loses one ship, two more float in its place.</p><p>1750, mad science, and ships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Tony Stark blows up the Avengers, meets interesting new people, ignores the wrong blue glow, and agrees to do what he does best.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Veiled truths](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2136147) by [Horns of Mischief (Rinelin)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinelin/pseuds/Horns%20of%20Mischief). 
  * Inspired by [Blinding](https://archiveofourown.org/works/977254) by [Skoll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skoll/pseuds/Skoll). 



> Enormous thanks to JayBarou for betaing, brainstorming, and forcing me to think about everything just a little bit more, all of which resulted in something that I'm going to take a deep breath and post.

It was a puzzle, and he liked puzzles.

The first clue was a faint feeling of relief from the dissipation of what must have been an enormous headache. Second was no memory of the headache. Then he became aware of the late afternoon city haze, not so yellow near the ocean, an instant before a head intruded between himself and the sky. A man with green eyes and a black ponytail shook him by the shoulders and demanded, "Are you all right?"

He stammered, "I don't …  Who …  What … ?" and wondered why, of all things problematic about lying prone on the polished deck of a small mixed-power ship with his heart doing double time and _no idea what his name was_ , his inability to form a complete sentence bothered him most.

The man with green eyes stopped shaking him and looked over the railing and asked, “Should I wait around for the authorities coming down the dock to take you off my hands? You don’t want to experience the tender mercies of a jail.”

“Uh, no!” yelped the man lying on the deck. “No, I don’t!” He scrambled for a grip on the slick wood rails or a rope, almost staggering upright behind the main mast, then lurching headfirst in the direction of the starboard.

The man with green eyes laughed delightedly and shouted, “The tide is leaving, Ms. Ulfr, and so are we! Ms. Romanov, stoke the boiler! Ms. Incantare, lay out the mizzen sail! All hands cast off! I have the helm!”

The man sitting on the deck swallowed and pulled his knees to his chest as a fire-headed woman in a black frock coat leaped over him. Five people rushed to seize ropes and unfold sails and do all the arcane things that the man knew he had no hope of understanding … although as he stared at the wind catching a sheet of thin metal almost over his head, he narrowed his eyes, sure that an irregular triangle would catch wind from that angle better, and a rope right _there_ would bend the solar foil into the right shape for a twelve percent increase in kinetic energy....

Shouting from the dock drew his attention away from the sail, and the puzzled man craned his neck to look around the mast without showing too much of his face.

A crested blonde woman leading an assortment of people in uniforms pushed down the dock. One blond man, who must have had better eyesight than the rest, pointed directly at the half head peering from behind the mast, shouting. Another blond produced a round badge and attempted to yell at the dockmaster to stop the foilship.

On the deck, the boiler flashed to life and began pouring out steam, but only the aft wheel began turning. The man under the mainsail leaned to try to see if the solar foil was connected properly to the port and starboard, realizing only one needed to be broken for both to be out of commission if the crew didn’t want to turn in circles. The aft wheel, was, however, an impressive size for such a small foilship and could set an even faster pace when it didn’t have to share power with two other steamwheels.

An arrow thudded into the mast over his head. The arrow was glowing. The puzzled man had a moment to think that he should be able to take the arrow apart and stop the glow, then realized glowing weapons were probably a _very bad thing_ , and hoisted himself up to grab onto the arrow and pull it out of the mast with his falling weight, then fling it over the side onto the end of the dock. It exploded, taking two pylons and a chunk of dock with it.

The gaggle of police were attempting to board a ship, but the police weren’t moving yet and the tiny three-masted foilship definitely had a nice turn of speed. An archer raised his bow again, but the blond man grabbed his arm and shouted something. Well, that was nice. They didn’t want to kill his rescuers just to get to him. That probably meant he hadn’t killed anyone.

“Do you think you owe us an explanation?”

The puzzled man turned away from his enjoyment of the  mayhem they were leaving behind. With the sails fully exposed to the sun, one of the women had taken over the helm with a navigator beside her. The other three crewmembers stood over him. “Yes, I do, but I would like to reiterate my earlier confused babbling.” He tried grinning. They didn’t smile back, but they also didn’t seem any angrier, so he relaxed. Actually, they seemed nervous of him. “I don’t — as in, I don’t seem to remember much of anything. And who — are you? What’s going on?” He was going to continue, but he really did want answers, and none of them were interrupting.

“Your play, Captain,” said Redheaded and Deadly.

"Welcome to the good ship …  No, the _great_ ship _Jormungandr_ ," said Tall and Green-Eyed, affecting disinterest by studying his square pocketwatch. It didn’t work, with how he nervously shifted his feet. “I will apparently be your host. You, sir, are a stowaway — but don’t worry. I’m sure we can find you some way to repay us.” The puzzled man saw a flash of a blue glow before the captain tucked the pocketwatch into an inside pocket of his bottle green coat. Captain Green-Eyed smiled back, showing far too many teeth to be at ease. “You may call me Captain Loki. My first mate, Ms. Ulfr.” He gestured, indicating the woman in a half bright and half black shirt sewn from ribbons. She wore an eyepatch over her left eye, but it didn’t cover the puckered white scar. Her left hand was a hook, and her left leg wooden. “My third mate, Ms. Romanov.” The redhead in black. “My second mate, Ms. Incantare.” At the helm. “And navigator, Ms. Miller.” Leaning over a chart pinned to a lectern by the helm. “Can you stand, Sir Stowaway?”

“Uh, let me test that and get back to you.” He attempted a bit of a scramble, getting halfway up mainly by armpower before his feet flew out from under him. Why was a ship deck so slippery? “Nope. Next question?”

Instead of speaking, Ms. Ulfr and Ms. Romanov stepped forwards and seized him under the arms, dragging him up the ladder to the fore deck, where they deposited him at the map, where the navigator gave him a friendly shoulder pat and rattled off some directions to the captain. The puzzled man followed the directions on the map, piecing together more hints. He knew that coastline.

"Don't mind that," said Captain Loki, waving a casual hand in his direction, and the ship lurched underfoot.

The puzzled man had to grab onto the first mate's shoulder to avoid being flung to the rail, and possibly overboard. Her ability to maintain her balance on _this_ wood deck and _this_ rolling ship, with a full-grown man flung into her, and with a peg leg to boot, put him to shame.

“You have the helm, Captain?” she asked.

“I have the helm, Ms. Ulfr. Keep an ear out until we round Idra Isle, though, I’d like to lay a proposition in front of our …  ah …  unexpected guest before he demands to be put ashore.”

“Aye, Captain. All right, you lot, off the fore deck, let the Captain pretend he’s got some privacy.” She hustled mates and a navigator before her down the ladder.

The puzzled man grinned. “I appear to have nowhere better to be and a lot of people to be far away from. Proposition away, Cap.”

Loki’s face froze like a glacier. “You may _call_ me _Captain_ Loki.”

Wrong thing to say, then. The puzzled man rushed to create a diversion. “Aye aye, _mon capitaine_. How come you left Athens so fast and then called me a stowaway? I don’t think it counts as stowing away when you have to jump over me to set sail!”

“I thought you jumped on our ship _because_ you saw we were about to leave,” said the second mate, a blonde with a matching sea-green sash, tricorn, and cockade, from down on the well deck. She seemed to be mending rope.

"I think I must have hit my head boarding, because I don’t remember that. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what they want with me. I don't even know my name!"

"I do know _that_ ," said Captain Loki, rummaging in a pocket, pulling out a broadsheet newspaper, and shaking it out so an inner headline was clearly visible. There was an engraving of a bearded man standing next to a system of levers and pulleys with the caption, _Inventor wins science competition_. "You're Tony Stark," continued Loki. "It says here … " The wind whipped around them, catching the broadsheet and ripping it from Loki's hands. Loki lunged futilely towards the fore rail, fingers just missing the paper. Tony lunged for the abandoned ship's wheel just as it started to list to one side. For a few minutes, they were both too involved in swearing to continue productive conversation.

"I didn't even get a good enough look to see if they caught my good side," groused Tony.

"Do you remember which side is your good side?" asked Loki.

Tony didn't. He didn't remember what he looked like. He'd have to look in a mirror soon, anyway; he might not know much, but he knew he needed a shave.

“More importantly,” Loki continued, taking the wheel back from Tony and pulling out his pocketwatch again. Maybe it included a compass; Tony couldn’t see. “Do you remember what that article talks about? Solar foils and steam reactors and ship engines?”

Tony didn’t; then, as Loki listed more tech, he did. The solar foils of a foilship could use sunlight to boil seawater, or they could utilize wind to run like the sailing ships of old. He could clearly imagine pipe connections and Asgardian steel gears grinding smoothly above the skeg.

“You may have noticed we’re running only one of three wheels. The port steam wheel is broken. We were going to fix it in port, but _someone_ brought the authorities down on us. You seem to know something about engineering. I hope you know foilships. Fix _Jormungandr_ for us, Mr. Stark, and we will set you down at the next port of call and buy you passage on any ship there.”

“I hear you,” said Tony. He rattled his fingers on the map lectern. “Not sure I can promise anything.”

“Ms. Incantare …  ah, Ms. Miller. Would you kindly show Mr. Stark the engine room so he may make an informed decision?”

“Aye, Captain.” The ship’s navigator wore off-white and blue and had a thin black tattoo of an M across one eye. She practically flew up the ladder, offering Tony a supporting arm down, and carting him off to below deck. “She’s a small ship, so it’ll be really crowded down there. We’re absolutely not smuggling stuffed happy picolizards, and we’ll thank you not to go looking for a false hull on the night watch. But you can have the night watch if it means I get to sleep.”

“You’re a bit fast trusting me with this information.”

“What information? I just denied everything. Call me Layla.”

“Tony Stark. I didn’t get to read that broadsheet the captain had. Do you know more about me than I know about me?”

“I know lots of stuff, Mr. Stark …”

“Tony.”

“Tony.” Layla nodded. “But there’s not much I can tell you.”

“If you know lots of stuff, what _do_ you know?”

“Well, I know a torque wrench from a sprocket wrench; I know how Alexander the Great discovered the eastern route to the Americas; I know most of the royal family of Asgard, from north of Russia, just visited Athens and are leaving soon; I know you have trouble thinking straight when you’re not talking. And I know we need you. In here, watch your head, there’s a dear.” Layla stood aside from an open doorway.

Humming to himself, Tony reached up and slid himself under the engine. Layla handed him a torque wrench. Tony paused to glare at the wrench. It would probably bend if he ever needed to use it as a lever. How could he be expected to work in these conditions? Then he pushed the wrench in between the battery crystals, levering them aside so he could get a look at the zinc coil.

He slid around pulleys and matrices for almost two hours, shifting a few gallons of grease from the engine to his clothing, and emerged from a daze of talking to himself about power ratios when the wrench snapped. He flung it towards the door.

“Ow! Watch it!” complained someone who was obscured by half a ship’s worth of pipes and sprogs.

“Huh? Oh, sorry. Hey, hand me a twelve centimeter sprocket, would you? I think that might fit.”

“Did you miss the dinner bell, Mr. Stark?”

“I thought I told you to call me Tony. Oh, hey, you’re not Layla.”

“I’m Hela Ulfr, Mr. Stark, and what I say goes on this ship, and if I say the repairman eats, Captain won’t say different. Get out here and give us your prognosis.”

“Fine, fine, but hand me the sprocket, because I think if I …”

“No.”

Tony blinked. “Uh, what?”

“No.”

Tony started unwinding springs from his torso in a desperate effort to gain eye contact and correct this horrible mistake. “No, see, you don’t get it, no one tells me no, who are you to tell me no?” He finally made it clear of the engine only to have a towel flung in his face.

“I’m the first mate on a ship en route. Who are you?”

Tony blinked again, shaking away the remains of a headache. “I, uh, what was the question?” He pulled the towel down and looked up at a women wrapped in particolored silk, floral and black. Her black hair stuck up in all directions, and she raked her single eye over him critically. The eyepatch was also floral and black.

“Hungry?”

His scattered thoughts coalesced on his stomach. “Yes!”

“Clean your face and follow me.”

Tony scrambled over the threshold, shaking the last of the sprogs off his leg as he did so, staring at Hela. “So, what’s your story, with the whole …?” He waved a hand to indicate her entire left side, scarred and battered as it was.

“Pirates,” she said shortly, then added, “Punkship thinks we have valuable cargo, it’s my job to teach them it’s not worth it. They usually learn their lesson, but sometimes they’re slow to learn and the fight lasts too long.”

Tony looked at her. He leaned to the eye patch side and watched her turn her head. “Are you the worst fighter?”

She grinned. Well, she bared her teeth. “I’ve created a few statistics in my time. If I need to, I make sure they know they need to take me out first, if they want to harm my crew, but that’s not going to hold up if I lose another twenty pounds.” She shrugged her remaining whole arm as an example.

They entered the galley, where the four women and Tony bunched up together, shoulder to shoulder along the wall, knees almost touching the alcohol stove. “If you’re here long enough, you’ll either cook or clean,” said Hela. “Ms. Miller and Ms. Romanov can cook. We have fresh fruit just out of Athens, but don’t get used to it. Hard tack and jerky soon enough.”

“It’s just chemistry,” said Tony dismissively. “Of course I can cook.”

Layla snickered, leaning over to ask Ms. Incantare, “Remember Arnim Zola, Amora? He said the same thing. He could never get the galley stove to stop burning the porridge.”

“We’ve had a lot of tech officers over the years,” Amora explained to Tony kindly. “Always something to fix, I think.”

“You’ve been together long?” asked Tony. “Except for the tech officers, naturally.”

“Cheng,” said Layla. “You’re our new cheng.”

“While you’re here,” corrected Hela. “Be it one day or ten — which is longer than Hammer lasted, so you can call yourself cheng if you like. It’s an officer rank.”

Natasha snorted. “Lowest ranking officer on a crew of five plus the captain.”

“Short for Chief Engineer,” added Layla.

“Chief and only.”

“Ms. Romanov, if you’re done eating, go relieve the captain on watch,” said Hela, looking annoyed. “I have cleanup. The rest of you, scatter.”

On deck, Tony attempted to scatter, but that meant a limit of about twenty paces, so he tried breathing deeply of the fresh air. Mediterranean night air was rather fishy. He could see the lights of Sicily off the starboard bow, with Malta to port, which put their speed at about eleven knots.

“Enjoying the view, Cheng Stark?” asked Amora, leaning on the railing next to him. They’d been closer in the galley, but that had been out of necessity.

“Great view, great company, great ship,” said Tony. “Not commenting on the fire damage, but she was a great ship before that.”

“Ah, well, the risks of the merchant marine,” said Amora, trailing fingers along Tony’s arm and up towards his neck, making his hair start to prickle. “It has its threats, and it has its … opportunities.”

“You seem to have made the most of your opportunities so far. Everyone here seems dressed for work in fine silks and brocades.”

“What about you, Mr. Stark? I think that might be red velvet under the engine grease. There might be an opportunity to take care of that here.”

Amora’s hand crept higher. Tony rattled his fingers against the railing, trying to think, trying to remember. There were so many potential social pitfalls here that he might not even be aware of, and he didn’t even know if he’d left someone behind. Would he be stuck on this ship for a year with only five other people? Would that make it worse or better to jump in without knowing if he could swim?

Her hand curled around the back of his head. Tony was still deciding whether to lean forwards or away from Amora, when a voice from aft made them both jump.

“ _Ms. Incantare_ ,” said Ms. Romanov with an emphasis that Tony didn’t quite understand. He dealt with his confusion by grinning at her broadly. “You want to go see the first mate. Right now.”

Amora pouted at the third mate. It was a very fine pout. Her eyes slid towards Tony, and he could see her deciding not to let her subordinate boss her around in front of him.

“Captain’s interested in talking to you, Mr. Stark,” Ms. Romanov continued. “In your own time, of course. Shall I tell him where you are?”

“Excuse me, Tony,” Amora purred suddenly. “Ship’s business, you understand.” She took a moment to straighten his coat. “Let me know if you want to continue this some time.”

“Uh, right. Will do. I will let you know.” He watched her head below, still trying to work out which way would cause the most trouble. Then he caught Ms. Romanov observing him impassively, so he smiled shamelessly at her. “Captain’s quarters is under the poop deck? I know where that is. I’ll just … ” He followed his own pointing finger, wishing that didn’t mean he had to turn his back on someone with eyes that dead and uncaring.

Tony knocked on the door and let himself in, saying, “You people are horribly scary. Did you deliberately pick the most terrifying women in the world to crew this floating heap of junk? I’m including you in that, by the way, Albatross.”

The captain’s cabin was furnished primarily with hinges. Well, platforms of varying sizes and shapes attached to hydraulic hinges so they could be folded up against the wall and wouldn’t slide around the room in rough weather. The bed was up and the desk was down right now. Tony rubbed the faux-wood grain, thoughtfully. It was of a material that would repel water and not corrode under the effects of salt. He was sure he would remember the name any minute now.

Loki looked up from the ship’s manifest and turned around. “Yes, it’s a common reaction to most of us. I take it Ms. Incantare was welcoming you aboard?”

“Uh ….”

“I can tell because otherwise you would have excluded her from your generalization. Do come in and make yourself at home.” Loki looked pointedly at the door Tony had already closed behind him. “May I offer you a drink? I’m afraid it’s rum or electrified seawater.”

“I think I like the sound of rum,” said Tony. “I’m pretty sure I don’t like being summoned will-I-nill-I when I’m in the middle of being terrified out of my skin by opportunity.”

The captain glided around the cabin, unconcerned by the rolling ship as he collected unbreakable tumblers and filled them from a cabinet, lowering a sideboard and surprisingly comfortable chair for Tony to use. “On the rocks?”

“Sure, why not?” He watched in fascination as Loki made a magician’s pass over the glasses, dropping ice crystals in them that had not existed a moment before. He felt the corners of his mouth try to curl up on their own. “You’re a wizard.”

Loki gave him an unreadable look. “A little minor sorcery is all.”

“Do you help power the ship? I saw you reset the foils to catch wind after the sun went down, but the wheel is still turning.”

“I have done so, but we are running on battery power for now. _Jormungandr_ will drain her batteries shortly before sunrise given the scattered clouds of the day. After a long day with no clouds, she can go all night with all three wheels.”

“What can you do? Create ice, power foilships, what else?”

“Mr. Stark …”

“Tony.”

“I hope we’ll be putting you ashore tomorrow, Mr. Stark. I don’t want to get overly familiar and I see no need to answer your questions when, frankly, I’d rather the world were unaware of my abilities. I offered you a deal. Fix my ship for passage home. Can you do it?”

Tony slid his tumbler from hand to hand across the board. “By tomorrow? not with what I saw available to me, not in a way that’ll hold, but I can jury-rig something that’ll get us some extra speed. But hey, looks like I want to be out of town for a while anyway, Captain Albatross. You got yourself a deal.” He grinned. “What kind of upgrades do you want?”

 ~

Leagues behind _Jormungandr_ , the good ship _Avenger_ finished provisioning. Her captain stood with an old friend on the burnt and blackened dock, looking ahead into the darkness, waiting for the tide to turn.

Carol clapped Steve on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Cap. We’ll find him.”

“Yes,” said Steve, “but when?”


	2. In which  Tony doesn’t blow anyone up yet, Natasha is merciless, Amora is merciful, Layla knows stuff, Loki doesn’t worry about money, and there’s a little disagreement with SHIELD at the Strait of Gibralter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, JayBarou, for betaing.

No one was ever idle on board the _Jormungandr_. Amora stood in the crow’s nest, by a green flag emblazoned with a golden serpent, with Layla on the sounding board, calling directions to Natasha at the helm, while Hela slept her shift after command of the night watch, and Loki did accounts in the captain’s cabin.

The foilsails gleamed black and iridescent rainbows. Tony was calibrating the crystals in the main mast.

There wasn't a single shaving kit on board. Tony had given Loki a long, dubious look. He had frowned and raised an eyebrow. Loki had looked as if ice wouldn't melt in his mouth, so Tony had spent a few minutes repurposing the broken wrench into something that wouldn't cut his throat if the ship hit a wave wrong. It didn't hold an edge for five minutes, but Tony felt more himself. Fortunately, there was no lack of shiny surfaces and hot water in the engine room. Natasha provided the sliver of soap.

“Stand by for steamwheel activation!” Tony shouted, bouncing a little in the improvised rope harness he was using to stay upright.

“What did he say?” shouted Amora over his head.

“He said it’s fixed!” Layla shouted back.

“Temporarily,” Tony hurried to correct her. He went to throw the switch, but it was by the helm and Natasha got there first. Clearly, he had made a mistake in warning her. And another mistake in not configuring the harness to instantly swing him from main mast to fore deck, to poop deck and back, he realized, stumbling for the mizzenmast’s crystal box.

With a hum, the port and starboard wheels began to turn. The stern wheel slowed proportionately; the ship sped up about fifty percent. Layla and Amora whooped, and even Natasha permitted herself a small smile. Tony frowned and headed for the boiler.

Even Loki felt the sea change and came out of his cabin. He watched Tony for a moment, then quickly said, “Congratulations- on- the- wheel- Mr.- Stark-  and- are- you- about- to- blow- us- up!?”

“Uh … ” Tony began, then stopped, eyeing the steam levels. “No worse than some of the damage you’ve got.”

Loki grabbed his arm, dragging him back from the boiler, then stood, looking a little confused, taking deep breaths and staring at Tony. “Maybe we can schedule some downtime for the boiler on a windy day, and you can work with the fires turned off, hmm?”

“Oh, yeah, good idea,” said Tony, wondering why he hadn’t thought of that.

“Perhaps you can write up your plans so I can approve them, Mr. Stark. That way we can arrange for what you need when you need it, instead of risking all our lives.”

“That doesn’t sound …  right … ” Tony hesitated, trying to work out why he didn’t want the captain to have any say over the changes Tony wanted to make to _Jormungandr_. She was Loki’s ship. Loki should have control, right? There were just so many changes he wanted to make, and he wanted to do them all _now_ , not spend time writing down plans for approval by someone who wouldn’t understand half of what he was talking about. He could tell Loki was about to start condescending to him, but he didn’t have to invent an explanation the captain could live with. It might have been better if he had.

“You forgot your name, Tony,” babbled Layla, swinging the sounding line. “Unless you actually do want to kill us —  which I wouldn’t blame you, I want to kill them too after a month at sea —  anyway, unless you want to kill us, maybe figure out some way for one of us to check your work for anything else you forgot.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll leave the boiler for later anyway. Anyway, I think I saw …  Is this a thaumic turbo on the foil prong? You can’t do that without a magic adapter. No wonder everything’s guano’d from here to Tierra del Fuego. I hate magic. You know what, I’m scrapping everything and rewiring it for electricity.”

“Can you do that without leaving us stranded?” asked Loki.

“Later. Later, I will rewire _Jormungandr_ for electricity. And I will do it without having to beach her. There isn’t a single other person on the face of the planet who can do that.”

“How sure are you of that?” asked Layla.

Tony opened his mouth to answer, then paused. There was something about …  a green monster? No, a blue glow. He sat in the middle of the gears and crystals of the boiler, blinking vaguely, relieved that his headache had gone away. He was sure it had been a bad one.

“You can rewire her for electricity, right?” pushed Loki.

“What? Oh, yeah, probably. She’s a good ship. Solar foils in great shape, strong frame. Just don’t steer her into any more cannonballs and I should have the permanent wheel fix running in no time. Then I’ll get started on the hydrogen balloon, and we might have flight by the end of the month.” Tony watched with fascination as Loki’s eyes turned dreamy and sparkling. Sure, flight was great, but she was just a foilship, and she’d never make any altitude.

Amora laughed. “This ship has never flown.” Loki scowled at her for saying that.

“And whose fault is that?” asked Natasha.

Amora swung out of the crow’s nest and slid down to deck, fists clenched. “Gee, I’d guess it’s the fault of whoever brought the entire Asgardian Air Command down on us after what was supposed to be a _subtle_ prison break.”

Natasha turned at the helm to look down at the well deck. “Is that appropriate conversation for present company?” she asked.

“Don’t mind me,” said Tony quickly.

“I don’t,” said Natasha.

Amora pouted and clearly considered starting something with the little third mate, but Natasha had already turned back to ignoring everything but the helm and Layla Miller, and Layla looked mightily entertained by Amora.

Layla took another sounding and called, “At this rate, we’ll make the Atlantic by nightfall. A decent miracle, and we’ll make it by noon.”

Tony laughed. “I’m not promising miracles.”

Layla gave him a thumbs-up. “They used to like you, back in Europe. Tony Stark. The best at what you do. We can send you back. You could go back. Find out why they’re after you. If you ever get the port steamwheel stable.”

Tony shrugged uncomfortably, shuffling across the deck. “How could I go back with the crystal matrix out of alignment? If I can cushion against shocks, do you know how much faster this ship would go? Me neither, and I want to find out. ‘Sides. They shot that exploding arrow at me. It took out half a major dock. I don’t think I want to find out what sort of justice is waiting for me.”

Amora looked sad. Tony felt bad for her. She shouldn’t look sad on his behalf. She started rubbing his back comfortingly. “Do you …  what if someone misses you?”

Tony blinked. “Wait a minute, what was I thinking about?”

“How not to explode the on-deck boiler,” said Amora, too quickly.

Tony kept his hands moving around the pulleys as felt his world still around him. That was a lie. Amora had lied to him, and she knew she was lying to him —  she was very bad at it. But how could she know it was a lie —  regardless of what he had been thinking about, he was pretty sure he hadn’t been talking about the same thing, so how could she be so sure he wasn’t thinking about exploding boilers? He shrugged uncomfortably under Amora’s touch on his back.

“Ms. Incantare, enough!” snapped Loki.

“But we want him to want to stay … ”

“Let the man work! If I catch you laying one more hand on him that he hasn’t asked for, you go ashore at Mauritania!”

“Easy on the lady, Captain Albatross, I can defend myself,” said Tony. “And don’t worry about me staying, oh Boa Constrictor. You don’t need to seduce me. In fact, it’s better if I don’t decide I need to avoid you at all costs to avoid post-seduction awkwardness.”

Amora mouthed ‘Boa Constrictor?’ incredulously to herself, but after watching Tony banging around the pulley connectors for a while, she excused herself back to her lookout post.

Tony hooked up rubber bladders, filled with seawater and almost as big as himself, as counterweights. He pulled until he could go from stem to stern, then set about making his new travel system take him to the engine room before realizing he could use this to more efficiently lift water for steam power —  as long as it didn’t sink the ship. Maybe that was another thing to wait on for a day or two.

He was tightening bolts when the captain made another appearance on deck.

“I must congratulate you, Mr. Stark. Every time I turn around, _Jormungandr_ has improvements.”

“You finished your bookkeeping, Captain Albatross?” Tony asked.

“Bookkeeping,” Loki said whimsically. “Yes, for the nonce.”

“Also route planning, price analysis, weight movements, factor identification, and more” interpolated Layla. “Stuffed happy picolizards sell well in Winslow and Taipei, but we’ll see what we can pick up along the way. Captain’s a busy man, but he’s good at what he does.”

Loki cleared his throat. “Ms. Miller.”

“Can you add a line item for new tools?” asked Tony. “You’ll be out of wrenches in a week at this rate.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Quality stuff. I need thaumic calibrators and compact torches. Preferably a lot of metal so I can make some of my own stuff. I have some ideas, but I’m pretty sure they don’t already exist.” Tony looked back and forth between crew members. Loki looked uncomfortable. Layla smirked smugly. Overhead, Amora was clearly paying more attention to the deck conversation than the horizon. Natasha’s back was to them, but he was pretty sure she hadn’t cracked an expression. “Oh. Is money the problem?”

“We have money,” said Layla. Natasha frowned at her, then nodded and arched an eyebrow at Loki.

“I may have had a moment of genius that resulted in a rather large cash inflow the last time we made port,” said the captain, “but that’s nothing you need to be concerned about, Mr. Stark.” He cleared the board with a single wipe. Tony wondered why that movement made him shudder.

“We just need a port that’ll accept our letters-of-rights, and that’s every major port in the world,” Layla offered up, grinning. “The signatory is well-respected.”

“Ms. Miller, that’s enough!”

“Captain!” Amora hallooed from the crow’s nest, swinging herself down to deck. “Zipship on the horizon and closing. She’s flying a Coalesced Ottoman States flag.”

“Oblivion and chaos,” swore Natasha, “it’s SHIELD troops.”

“We’re still an hour out from the Strait of Gibraltar,” said Layla, leaving the sounding board. “They still have jurisdiction.”

Tony looked at the crew. The crew stared back at him. Tony rapidly ran his harness through his fingers. “I’m not accusing you of anything, but I’m guessing you don’t want to be caught any more than I do.”

Loki’s eyes flew to the foilsails. Then all eyes were on Tony.

Loki took a deep breath. “Ms. Miller, wake Ms. Ulfr. Mr. Stark, do your stuff.”

“Aye, aye, _mon capitaine_ , all possible speed without blowing up!” He even saluted. Then he dove for the boiler.

“And remember to take care of your own health, too,” Loki shouted in passing as he ordered the sails reset and the fuel cells diverted from the batteries. “And Ms. Ulfr, prepare the cannon.”

At first, Tony was too focused on his work to pay attention, but then his mind replayed the captain’s words for him. Then he was sure he hadn’t heard that correctly. Then it became urgent that he not be mistaken. “What?”

“We can’t hurt a zipship with our measly weaponry, Mr. Stark, but we can slow them down or encourage them to leave us be if we are not valuable enough prey. Make no mistake that SHIELD is a predator of the sea, and we are its prey, and I will fight like a cornered rat to defend my dear _Jormungandr_ from them.” Captain Loki flipped open his pocketwatch and turned to align it with the sun, causing it to sparkle with a weird blue glow. “Concentrate on speed, Mr. Stark, and we’ll get out of this with no one being hurt.”

Minutes later, Tony was ranting, mostly to himself, as he clattered around the power source. The captain stood nearby, trying and failing to project calm. Natasha gave the helm over to Layla and planted her feet, swaying with _Jormungandr_ ’s motion, watching the SHIELD zipship approach. Amora swung herself across the deck, using Tony’s pulleys without needing a harness, and stood by Natasha, drawing and resheathing her sword.

 _Jormungandr_ with only organic cargo under a false hull could be faster in the water than any zipship, Tony was certain. He was also certain that zipship was approaching faster than any zipship should be able to.

They wouldn’t make Gibraltar in time. He could see the towering face of the Pillars of Hercules  ahead, to either side of the strait, whenever his head was above the rail. It would be eight miles through the strait. Less than an hour now, and they’d be in the Atlantic. When the little foilship was in the strait, Spain and Morocco would …  they would … 

The zipship was closing in.

Tony saw flashes of a blue glow and popped his head up. He gaped at the shoulder cannon Hela was wielding, half propped on the rail. It discharged apparently solid energy, possibly electricity or blue-hot fire, which left charred marks on the wood of the zipship twelve lengths away.

 _Avenger_ did not change course.

Tony dove back to his work. “Hey, Albatross, do you think you can feed a little power in here and give us a boost?”

Loki rounded the boiler and knelt by Tony’s head. “I know I can, but not for long. Here?”

“Better if we can run it through a battery wire below deck,” he mused. “What’s your throughput?”

Loki eyed Tony dubiously.

Tony shook his head. “Look, Captain, there’s not trusting me while bargaining for repairs, and then there’s not trusting me when we’re going to be boarded or sunk because I’m lacking essential information. Tell me how much power you can give me.”

Looking extremely uncomfortable. “I can maintain fifty thaums an hour indefinitely while sleeping. If I want to be useless for the next week, I can shove five thousand thaums into the system in a second. I trust you can extrapolate from there, Mr. Stark.”

“What about, say, about ten minutes through the narrowest part of Gibralter? A thousand thaums a minute should give us twelve percent more speed. And if I can finish this fast enough …  go find an empty battery and hook yourself up in its place and tell Layla to yell when.”

Loki knocked his fist on the deck, staring at the approaching zipship, then briefly clasped Tony’s shoulder and rushed off to the engine room. Tony’s hands flew, repurposing and reorganizing and generally endangering the lives of everyone within a mile, not that he would ever mention that to the rest of the crew.

 _Avenger_ laid down a plank with a grapple on _Jormungandr_. Natasha kicked it away once before _Jormungandr_ shook from a heavy impact. By the sound, they had fired heavy artillery. Tony braced for a second volley which never came. Huh. They must not have loaded enough ammunition before they gave chase.

A large woman in green and purple led the charge across the plank. Natasha met her sword with more knives than hands, ducking in under her reach, dancing close and forcing the swordswoman to retreat to maneuver. Then the third mate hooked a leg on the plank and swung _under_ it, reappearing behind and engaging with a musketeer still on the zipship. Amora fenced with _Avenger_ ’s point swordswoman, distracting her until Natasha, without looking, swept her legs out from under her and tossed her into the briny deep. _Avenger_ ’s crew shouted a warning and dropped ropes, but they began trying to disengage from _Jormungandr_ to avoid crushing their crewmate.

Finally, Tony hauled himself out of the boiler and stared up into the rigging. He cracked his knuckles.

A man with a silver sleeve tried to swing across the gap between ships. Tony hauled on his ropes and slammed a seawater bladder into him, then snagged the silver-armed man’s rope and knotted it loosely so they couldn’t have it back until they disengaged. He also stole a couple of bolts and pulleys attached to the rope, and oh, that was an interesting alloy he would definitely get back to when the fight was over.

With a dozen counterweights swinging chaotically across the rails, only one black man dared try to cross the plank. He borrowed Natasha’s trick of swinging underneath, but Natasha and Amora had an entire railing to work with and hands free for their bladed weapons. They hacked at the plank’s grapple until they were able to unhook it and push away with enough force that the foilship lurched.

Hela aimed her energy cannon  and took out the zipship’s rudder.

Tony bounced around in his harness, hoping to collect more ropes with their attached treasures, when Layla Miller shouted, “Captain, _now, now, now_!”

 _Jormungandr_ hummed.

Eyes wide, Tony watched Morocco’s Jebel Musa shoot past at triple their previous speed. The _Avenger_ crew shouted in surprise, but they had folded sail to match _Jormungandr_ during the fight, and now they had to pick crew out of the water before they could give chase.

To the north of the straight, the Spanish citadel saluted them with a musket. To the south came Morocco’s echoing retort. Neither were trying to claim tolls or taxes today. SHIELD might even have to meet with the sometime-combatants-sometime-allies before they could follow _Jormungandr_.

In the choppy waves of the Atlantic, Tony leaned against the mast and slowly slid down it, staring up at the scattered clouds in the sky.

Amora laughed a little hysterically, sheathing her sword and pulling the corners of her tricorn down around her ears. “Well,” she said, “at least I’ve still got my hat.”

~

Loki watched his Chief Engineer during the inspection of _Jormungandr_. Mr. Stark made his contraption of ropes and pulleys dance him around the ship. He couldn’t walk, so he went straight to rope swinging. It was so typical of the man. An hour ago, he had looked like an infant in a swing. Now he moved from station to station, swiftly unhooking every time the impulse took him to go below.

Tony Stark had drunkenly half-followed, half-carried a complete stranger home via the scenic route from the ball, and insisted on waving his newly invented magnetic resonance brain imager at every person they passed the whole way. The awards ceremony had been for a sentient helper automaton. He had invented life-saving medical equipment while waiting for dessert to be served.

Loki felt the Tesseract, stolen and restolen so many times he’d lost count, weighing heavily in his pocket.

And then the man had started fixing his ship! He’d gotten _Jormungandr_ ’s aft wheel running again, yammering the whole time about gears Loki had thought he’d understood, and saying it was a shame such a pretty little ship had seen such big damage. Then he’d passed out on the deck.

Loki hadn’t been able to resist Natasha’s next suggestion. They had the brain imager, they had the Tesseract, Layla had a frightening amount of knowledge on how to merge the two into something greater than the sum of their parts, and Loki himself had the magic to make it work.

He just hadn’t thought the little engineer would be followed so quickly.

“Captain,” Hela, murmured in passing, offering a hand glowing faintly silver.

“Thank you, Ms. Ulfr.” She was only able to offer a faint trickle of energy, but it was much less difficult to stand afterward. Amora had already done the same.

“Saved us again, Captain. Should I start calling you Captain Albatross, too? You’re lucky enough.”

Loki rolled his eyes and went back to his inspection of every board and bolt he could see and many that he couldn’t. A good Captain found the problems and fixed them before they became trouble.

“So, guess who I saw on the zipship, Captain,” said Layla.

“The ‘Cap,’” muttered Loki. Mr. Stark had talked about Cap almost as much as magnetic resonance.

“Well, him too. Prince Thor of Asgard was wielding his hammer with gusto.”

Loki startled, then tried to cover it up by striding to the railing and looking over at the damage _Avenger_ had done. “Are you going to continue your habit of giving our guest far too much information for his own good, Ms. Miller?” he demanded. “You might want to consider your own good as well.”

“Hey, us shanghaied folk have got to stick together,” said Layla, grinning.

“As I recall, _you_ shanghaied _us_ , not vice versa.”

“Tomato, tomahto, Bombay, Mumbai. You _would_ have shanghai’d me if I hadn’t taken the initiative.”

“Remember who holds the power on this ship, and stop talking to him if you can’t stop giving him hints.”

“Sure, Captain. And if me suddenly avoiding him in ten square feet of living space doesn’t clue him in to our secrets, maybe we can confine him to quarters. Oh, wait, there’s not an inch of space that’s not covered with things he can use to blow us all up.”

Loki scowled and gave instructions to skip Morocco. They would stop to trade and resupply in Spanish Guinea, a few days further on. It would be nice if they made a profit this voyage, but he rather suspected that, despite the attendant troubles, the biggest profit had come from Athens.

~

Aboard the SHIELD zipship _Avenger_ , nine crew, two passengers, and Commodore Steve Rogers took stock. Steve held a dispatch in his hand. “SHIELD wants me to return to base,” he said.

After a silence, there was a moment of general hilarity, edged with all the relief and self-flagellation that came with surviving a fight but achieving no objectives. Queen Frigga enquired of Jen Walters, who was more comfortable than the rest around royalty, why SHIELD’s orders made the crew laugh.

“Because there’s no way Steve’s going home with Tony still missing, your Majesty,” the _Avenger_ ’s factor said.

“Should he not obey his liege lord?” Frigga pressed.

“SHIELD’s not like that, ma’am, not with specialists, and Steve, well, let’s just say he’s special.”

“We’ll press on,” Steve declared.

Carol cleared her throat pointedly.

Suddenly abashed, Steve hastily added, “With your permission, Captain Danvers, ma’am.”

“Don’t try giving orders on my ship, and I won’t have you sent home on the next courier, Commodore Steviekins,” Carol said dryly.

“Yes, I deserved that. Don’t overdo it.” Steve fidgeted. “They’ll avoid the main ports if they’re fleeing us.”

“We can’t afford not to make inquiries, but we can be quick. We won’t overnight anywhere.”

“If that is what is necessary to capture my brother and his minions,” proclaimed Thor, “then I thank you, good Avengers, and wish you make all speed.”

Carol arched an eyebrow, but only said, “That is our plan, Prince Thor, and that is what we are doing at this moment. A zipship may not be able to fly, but she has some decent lift at full power. We can reduce drag for a few days. _Avenger_ will catch _Jormungandr_ , never fear.” She looked around at her crew (and Steve), and finally added, “For your brother’s sake, I hope that Tony is not hurt. SHIELD will not give up our claim on Prince Loki merely because you bid us do so.”

Thor looked thunderous, but Frigga laid a hand on his arm. “I understand your need for vengeance, Captain Danvers, but I hope that if my son survives the heat of battle, you will allow us to pay weregild.”

“We’ll see, ma’am,” said Steve.

“Did anyone see Tony? He was tied up, but it looked like he was making trouble anyway,” said Clint.

“That’s …. ” Steve paused. Good or bad? Bad for the foilship and her crew, definitely. “That’s Tony.”

~

Forty leagues away, the upper rudder of the punkship _Hydra_ cut through the water like a shark’s fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are the cinnamon and sugar on my bread and butter.


	3. In which  Hela has a right to her emotions, a figurehead frolics, the approximate present does not approximately predict the future, we hear the  prelude of an AI ,  escapades in dreaded Dakar, and Hydra is  off the rails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: This AU’s major point of divergence from our universe is Alexander the Great living to old age and conquering the Pacific Coast of North and South America. This has caused some unpredictable historical/geopolitical differences and technological advances. Also, magic.
> 
> Trigger warnings: slave auction, hinted torture. This deals with a highly emotional and horrible fact of human history, and I hope I was able to treat it with the respect it deserves.

Everyone was always grumpy after the shift rotation. As _Jormungandr_ ’s First Mate, Hela considered ways to counteract the general mix of lassitude and irritation. She would normally start with Amora, counteract her own irritation by talking to Layla in the middle, and then suffer through addressing Natasha’s pointed issues. However, they had a new Chief Engineer (again), and Hela couldn’t decide where to place him. She could talk to him last if she went by rank, but that would move Layla down, too.

“How fares the day, Ms. Incantare?” She smiled at her second mate despite the pull of her lips making her aware of her empty eye socket.

“Full sun, low wind, and not a ship nor shore on the horizon for the past three hours.” They had adjusted course to be out of sight of any settlements they might pass. As long as they didn’t need to anchor, it only added a few miles to their journey south.

“Talk with me a while before you go to your bunk.”

“Official or unofficial, ma’am?” asked Amora.

“Just friendly-like.”

“Okay, Hela.” Amora sighed. “Mangoes. I’m looking forward to mangoes.”

“I miss apples,” Hela admitted. “I wouldn’t say no to a mango, but the crunch of a northern apple …  yeah.”

“Well, there’ll be mangoes tomorrow in Dakar. It might be a year before we’re back in apple country.”

Later, Hela joined Layla in the crow’s nest. “I love the wind,” shouted Layla.

“Too loud,” Hela replied. It rushed past her ears with every roll and plunge of the ship. The foilsails glittered below them like the Bifrost. The sea sparkled endlessly under the sun. “Do you think there’s something to be seen up here, Layla? Come down and talk.”

“I think there’s something I won’t see,” said Layla worryingly.

“You’re doing that on purpose, Ms. Navigator. How do you know?”

Layla shrugged and smiled.

Before lunch, Natasha said, “Help me reset the solar foilsails. Then satisfy your need to psychoanalyze.”

“What does psychoanalyze mean?” asked Hela.

“It is what you do when the ship is restless.”

Hela consulted the updated foilsail angle charts to catch the most sun and the least headwind; she retied ropes up and down the fore mast as she made adjustments, climbing to the top, then sliding to deck.

She then slotted a near full-circle hook in place on the stump of her arm and used it to grab a guy line out to the bowsprit, past the figurehead. She took her time replacing the forestay, aware of her off-center balance as she winched the rope in place. Her time in Asgard’s prisons had not treated her well. The leg would have had to be amputated even before Natasha and Amora had rescued Hela and Loki, but she had lost the eye in that escape, too. It was worth it, she kept telling herself. Barely, but it was worth it.

It was harder to believe herself when she lost the hand six months later fighting off privateers who tried to board. Trading her sword for a shoulder thaumic missile launcher helped; she powered it with her own magic, adding a little charge every day.

Beneath her, the figurehead curled, a golden sea serpent with green accents, holding a globe in its coils. Hela started further out and moved in towards _Jormungandr_.

The figurehead came to life just as she rested a foot on it to push up for balance.

The snake writhed around the globe, casting out a coil to catch Hela up. She reacted without thinking, punching it in the head with her free hand, but for all its organic movement, it was still made of hard plastic. She yelled her warcry, dangling by her hook, and kicked free.

The figurehead went still, curved into a new shape on the prow. It was winking at her.

Hela finished winching the sails into shape. Then, with a shaking hand, she said, “Excuse me, Ms. Romanov, I need to psychoanalyze someone else first.”

She didn’t have to check if Tony was listening, because he wouldn’t remember anything they didn’t want him to know, but Hela made sure Tony was nowhere near open flames, chemicals, or knives just in case she triggered a fugue state. Then she ripped into the former prince.

Hela slammed the door to the captain’s cabin behind her and started speaking before he could turn from his ledger. “I’m checking up on everyone after the shift change, and I have some issues to bring to your attention, Captain,” Hela bit out. “Like living figureheads! Are you out of your mind? I almost fell.”

“You can swim. We would have thrown you a line.”

“By Odin’s left lung! In case you missed it, no, I can’t! I’m missing half my body, and I need the right equipment slotted in place to even tread water.”

Loki blinked but said nothing.

Hela took a step forward and tangled her hook in Loki’s cravat, hauling him to his feet and snarling in his face. “You have been nothing but irresponsible since Athens. What are you thinking, with all due respect, and not much is due, you corpse in the bilge water!”

“I was thinking, dear Hela, that too much pressure is bad for the soul. Was I wrong?”

“Oh, no. Don’t call me that. You do not call me that right now. You kidnap the richest man in the world to be a ship’s mechanic, then poison the relationship between him and Amora so he thinks she won’t stop flirting with him. You insult everyone on board, get us embroiled with the most powerful international police force on the seven seas, force us to skip Casablanca’s profits and comforts, and I haven’t had an apple since France! Did you even stop to think before you wiped his memory? Kidnapping, Loki. We’ll be hunted forever.”

“And now that he has no doubt overheard you and suffered a fifteen minute loss of focus, hopefully without killing himself, are you sure you wish to continue …  Oh, my.”

She continued. At length.

“You’ve clearly been bottling your emotions up, my dear Ms. Ulfr,” Loki said blandly. “You needed something to push you to the next step. I trust everything will be well in Dakar?”

Hela stared at Loki, panting heavily.

“Good work, Ms. Ulfr. You’re dismissed.”

Hela trudged out into the glaring sun and considered pounding her head against the mizzenmast until things made more sense.

“So,” said Tony. “I learned some stuff today.” Hela glanced at him, feeling the urge to fight, fly, or freeze roll over her belly. “Like missing half your body means your lungs have that much air left for yelling. Seriously impressive decibles there, Particorps. I particularly liked ‘corpse in the bilge water.’”

“Don’t you have something to do, Cheng Stark?” snapped Hela.

“Have to wait for a little metalwork to cool before I can do anything else. Can’t work while it’s compiling, you know.”

Hela didn’t know, but it sounded plausible. She took a deep breath, then another, determined not to aggravate the post-shift-change situation more than she already had. Amora and Layla were walking on eggshells around her. (Natasha was Natasha.) She knew why Loki wasn’t. She hoped Tony Stark wasn’t another such. “Excuse me, Mr. Stark, I’m not fit for company,” she said, and turned to stalk off. She crossed the deck and realized Tony was following her like a puppy.

“I just wondered if you’d let me take some measurements, is all.”

“Measurements of what? You have the run of the entire ship.”

“Didn’t I say? Of you.”

There was only so much she could take. “Mr. Stark, if your idea of wisdom is flirting with the woman who can have you keelhauled … ”

“Whoa! Decibles! Whoa! Not flirting! Building! You! New hand! New leg! Maybe eye, got some ideas there, have to see what sort of nerves you’ve got, need measurement! Good Tony, only wants to help, don’t kill me?”

Hela stared. She turned to the sea, then turned back to Tony and stared some more.

“You know, something so you don’t have to plan to take a dip to be able to tread water?” Tony prompted. “Measurements. Say yes.”

Hela opened her mouth. “What’s the catch?”

“The catch is I can do a better job if I have better tools and materials. And you have to let me measure you. In a completely non-flirting way! Well, as little as I ever do.” He fidgeted under her incessant stare. “Please may I help you? Please, Ms. First Mate?”

Hela smiled. “Well. Since you said ‘please.’ I’ll talk to the captain about appropriate use of those letters-of-rights in Dakar. I hope we can find everything you need.”

It wasn’t long before Hela was thinking of holding a sword again.

~

Tony felt pleasantly useful. People liked him. They snarked, he snarked back, someone kept it from getting out of hand without killing the humor. He was making a contribution; he was improving the quality of life of those closest to him (even if he wasn’t close to them); he had endless projects to work on and never had to stop thinking (as long as he was careful what he thought about, but he was pretty sure he didn’t want to think about that, anyway). There were certainly some things missing, but that just meant he had to fix them. Like his memory. He should probably make that a higher priority, if he were being responsible.

He also appreciated the regular meals. Despite the crew’s warnings, hard tack had yet to make an appearance. They had been right about the difficulty of mastering the stove, though. He suspected he might have missed some meals some time in the past, but he was careful only to think about that after someone forced him into a hammock at night. Clearly he was healthy _now_ , so it couldn’t have been too bad.

He had a few complaints.

“Hey, Albatross, your tools are made of candlewax.”

“I’m sorry our meager resources are not up to your impeccable standards, Mr. Stark. Ms. Hansen took our last set with her when she, ah, ‘jumped ship,’ and we’ve had to make do.”

Tony poked his head out of the engine to glare at Loki, lounging in the doorframe. “Are you here to help or make excuses.”

“I am here because my first mate informs me that I am to get a list of your demands, and if she sees me before nightfall, she will have me walk the plank. Here seemed the best place to accommodate both requirements.”

“Have you even got a plank?”

“Hela can always arrange for a plank, Mr. Stark. What do you need to rewire _Jormungandr_ for electricity? And make her fly?” Loki might pretend nonchalance, but he was clearly excited. He was unusually young to be captaining a smuggling ship heading for China.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Tony. “That kick you gave us at Gibraltar was pretty useful. I want to make sure I don’t ruin that. At the same time, I’m going to increase the efficiency and reduce weight. I can do all this, but I need more than material and tools. I need info.”

Loki shook his head, worrying his lip with his teeth. He looked back at the stairs, but apparently it was safer facing Tony’s questions than Hela right now.

“I can do thaum-watt-knot conversions in my head, Captain Battery. That was way more than five hundred thaums a minute back at the Pillars of Hercules. Come on, talk to me.”

“Asgard doesn’t like magic.”

“Okay,” Tony said slowly. “Is this relevant? I’m offering to custom fit some tech to your magic, Silence Do-Good. It might be worth ignoring Asgard for the sake of _Jormungandr_.”

It was painful the way Loki lit up. He barely smiled, but his eyes were brighter than at the idea of flight. By the end, he was talking even faster than Tony, who was hanging over the magnetic coil, bemused. “I’ve never been tested, never been able to test myself properly, but I know how, and I can do it on board. It’ll take time. It doesn’t make too much difference during the supply phase, does it? I _know_ I’m powerful. Exactly _how_ powerful doesn’t matter until late in calibration, does it?”

“It’s an entire field of study,” said Tony, “but I can estimate. I mean, the mathematics are a bit chaotic, but I’m not creating everything from scratch. I _know_ I know this stuff, and it all just falls into place, but I have to do all the calculations anyway because I never know what assumptions I made to get there in the first place. Anyway, sometimes that leads down interesting paths of inquiry, so it’s not a big deal. My guess is that you’re right.”

“What else do you need?”

“I need something like a Lorenz attractor, but I don’t even know what to call it. _Jormungandr_ is a dynamic system that’s highly sensitive to initial conditions and I’m having to invent ways to test those initial conditions that probably already exist but we can’t stop long enough to order special equipment from Lisbon or wherever … ”

“Vienna for chaotic systems.”

“Okay, but Dakar won’t have it, so we can’t order it and wait without getting caught. Unless you want to be arrested for helping an escaped fugitive from justice?”

“I’ll just tell them you were a stowaway.”

“Yeah, that might have worked before you had a pitched battle with SHIELD with the armies of two continents watching.”

“Taipei also has a chaotic system tech business cluster, but that’s months away.”

“I can do a lot in three months without a Lorenz attractor. Maybe even build one of my own —  except, again, we can’t stop, and calibrations are much more difficult on a moving ship. I’d better invent a way to counteract the motion. Some sort of persistent sensory network through the whole ship.”

“Preferably with output everywhere you might be working?”

Tony looked at Loki narrowly. “Why did you need me for repairs? You clearly know all this.”

“I am busy with the duties of captaincy and cannot spare the time. Furthermore, I like to make someone else do the dirty work so I may keep my clothes pristine. Information, Lorenz attractor, what else?”

“I need clothes. I need soap. I need a new razor. I need half a ton of titanium and forge access. Do I even get a salary? Am I slave labor?”

“You get wages at the end of the voyage. Nothing near enough to buy half a ton of titanium, but I think we can manage a signing bonus, Mr. Stowaway Who Brought SHIELD Down on My Ship, so you don’t have to go naked when your festival velvets finally lose cohesion. We’ll be heading to warmer climates. As to the forge … ” The captain tsked. “I need to make sure any explosions will be _planned_.”

“You know, I bet SHIELD would have been down on your ship anyway for cured angry microlizard smuggling.”

“Stuffed happy picolizard, and no, they wouldn’t even have looked at us twice if you weren’t on board.”

~

Dakar was a port city and smelled like it. It lay on the westernmost point in Africa and Europe, and thus the gateway to American trade. It was warm and humid. The larger area was known variously as Spanish Guinea, French Guinea, or Senegal by the locals. Here at the docks, there were more sailors and traders than native Lebou; both foreigners and natives were a brightly colored lot, either in uniforms or well-cared-for cast-off finery, exchanging ideas and fashions with their trade goods.

Before she disembarked, Layla scampered up to the crow’s nest and peered out beyond the walls encapsulating the peninsula. “Oh, dear, it looks like a lot of shipments are coming in today.”

“We shouldn’t split up,” said Natasha flatly.

“What? But … ” Amora looked disappointed at losing her night alone on the town.

“We might have to leave quickly,” Layla explained to Amora.

“I have to trade,” said Loki. “There’s no point having a ship if we don’t use it. Otherwise, we might as well sell _Jormungandr_ and …  settle down.” All five looked at Loki in horror.

“Tony needs everything,” argued Layla. “We can all accompany Tony, and we’ll all get what we need that way.”

“It takes a little longer than that to buy and sell … ” started Loki.

“Let me repeat.” Everyone fell silent for Natasha. “Tony needs _everything_. He needs personal effects and enough material to rebuild the ship. He needs legal and illegal and impossible things. We’ll find something worth trading if we visit every market on the peninsula. We’re short on time, anyway. You can’t hunt out the best bargains today. You don’t want SHIELD catching up, do you?”

“The Spanish and Moroccan sentries should stall them for us for at least a week,” said Loki, “and by now we’re faster than they are, as long as we don’t take on anything heavy, like a half ton of titanium and a forge.”

“It’ll be worth it,” said Tony.

Loki sighed, rubbing his forehead. “In the long run, I believe you. That doesn’t help us if SHIELD sends a fleet.”

“It’ll still be worth it.”

They looked up the gangplank at _Jormungandr_ , a little battered and less than gleaming at the waterline, but nevertheless shining green and gold. She was freshly scrubbed clean of barnacles, with an illusion of Loki lounging in the shade of the mast to scare off thieves. She wasn’t the smallest of the hundred or so ships in the port, but there were only a handful smaller.

“Dakar has limited resources, anyway. We’ll buy all they have and pick up the rest along the coast,” said Amora.

Loki winced. “That is not the way to get the best deal.”

“Don’t worry about it, Captain,” Hela said, grinning and slinging an arm around his shoulder as she began to walk inland. “Or else.”

The white columns and pointed arches of Dakar’s main bank shared a square with as impressive a palace as a valuable trade city constantly changing hands in wars or treaties could manage. There was a lot of gold leaf.

Loki pulled a thick, sealed envelope from an inner pocket. “They won’t honor the full face value, but I should be able to get … ”

“Yes, they will,” interrupted Natasha. “Give it to me and stay here.”

Loki looked abashed the whole time they waited. Tony wouldn’t even have been able to list all his requirements again before Natasha re-emerged.

“Stark.”

“Yeah-huh?”

Natasha tossed him a heavy leather purse. “Watch out for pickpockets.”

Tony stood in the dust of the crowded square, clutching the purse with both hands, looking from one person to the next. He swallowed. “Don’t get me wrong, but isn’t this a bit much for a signing bonus?”

“Aren’t you the best at what you do?” asked Loki blandly.

“Uh,” said Tony, but that was one answer he refused to be uncomfortable knowing. “Absolutely. Not that I remember, and trying to remember never seems to go well.” _Jormungandr_ ’s crew exchanged glances.

“Well. We like to pay for the best when we can.” Loki smiled at Tony, looking a mite possessive. “Don’t worry about the whole stowaway thing. Until SHIELD claps us all in chains, at which time we’ll be sure to place the blame where it belongs.”

“It’s not stowing away if you can see me!” Tony groused, grinning back and shoving Loki’s shoulder. Loki knocked his shoulder back, bumping him into Amora, who counter-bumped, then grabbed his hand and Layla’s.

“Come on,” she said, “we need to kit you out properly! I know where the rag stalls are!”

~

Apparently, all smugglers were clothes horses. Even Natasha traded her black bandana, frock coat, and pantaloons for _another_ black bandana, frock coat, and pantaloons. Amora liked any gold jewelry that hugged the skin closely enough that it wouldn’t get caught in the rigging. She put Tony in a gold silk shirt with red trim. Layla laughingly had him try a matching cloak, which he waved like a flag but discarded as impractical. Then he found a red frock coat with all the frogging, and gave up. Since red, gold, and engine grease was so fashionable, he added plain black and white for work.

As captain, Loki had both the most storage space and the obligation to present the best face for his ship to potential customers, so he was the only one who didn’t sell an old outfit to the rag stalls at the same time. Tony almost wished he’d thought to clean his velvets more to get a higher price, but that would have required spending time cleaning instead of building a sensor array.

Hela required special tailoring to make her clothes more manageable. Since she needed custom work anyway, she had them turn two half shirts into one, flaunting in defiance of those who would laugh at her disability. Tony took mental notes, trying not to be obvious, but maybe talking a bit more than Hela would have liked. She didn’t seem upset by him, though that was probably just being polite. Laughing at how he looked in a cloak a foot too long for him certainly wasn’t polite, but he was pretty sure laughing also wasn’t being upset, so he took it.

They were strolling and laughing towards the middle of town when Loki suddenly veered around a corner and stopped in the gateway to a large courtyard, his face as blank as Tony had ever seen it.

“Wait, Captain, not there …!” Natasha said, her eyes unexpectedly wide. Hela gave her a curious glance before looking over Loki’s shoulder.

Inside the courtyard were people, much the same as any other in the city. Mostly Africans with a mix of Europeans.

The people chained in a line were much the same as any other.

“Tell me that’s not … ” began Tony, his gut churning. Several people stood on a raised stage. One woman stood, keeping her eyes on her feet, a chain running from her neck to her wrists behind her back.

“You’ve  never seen a slave market before?” scoffed Natasha.

“Well, if I _had_ , I wouldn’t _know_ , would I?” snapped Tony.

“Nat,” hissed Layla, and they all looked at Hela, and the look on her face made Natasha and Layla grab her arms and bundle her around the corner. Amora kicked Tony in the ankle, and they dragged Loki after the others. They found a reasonably deserted alley far from the smells of the slave market and put their heads together.

“Later,” said Layla insistently. “We get everything on ship. Whatever we do here, we do after we finish equipping _Jormungandr_.”

Natasha nodded. “We will wait and we will be smart and we will accept that being smart here and now might mean just keeping our heads down.”

Hela shook her head like a caged bear. Loki looked as implacable as ever, except for a fine tremor in the corner of his eye, or the way he wouldn’t take his hands out of his pockets. Or the way he wasn’t contributing to the conversation.

“We talk later,” Layla repeated, looking steadily at Tony, but she shook her head quickly when he opened his mouth to ask questions.

“Whatever you two are planning, if you get killed, I’m using your corpses for shark bait,” said Natasha. “We do the smart thing.”

“I’m not arguing,” said Amora.

“I didn’t say anything,” said Tony, looking back in the direction they’d come. His fingers twitched. That was the pattern needed to make a key that would fit those shackles.

“Asgard calls them thralls,” said Layla abruptly. “Prisoners of the war with the Mongolian Empire.” Natasha growled. She scarping growled at Layla. “Those accused of treason, whether they did anything or not.”

“We do the smart thing, Layla. Don’t go making trouble until we know we can handle it. I know what you mean by ‘later,’ and ‘later’ ends up with us on that auction block, too. You know they won’t keep Hela. They’ll kill her out of hand. No one will come rescue us this time. You don’t know — ” Natasha cut herself off, because Layla always knew more than they thought. Tony didn’t think he could take it if Layla corrected her right now.

“Later,” Layla whispered again, and although from Natasha’s dirty look she heard, the discussion dropped.

Ten paces down the road, Amora started a drinking song, and they all decided to teach it to Tony. Although jittery, Tony threw himself into learning the tune, however often he stumbled from looking over his shoulder.

He felt sorry for the night watch. Whoever it was didn’t get to drink herself to sleep that night.

~

The next morning, they stopped at an outdoor forge. The air wavered with heat around three anvils and the smiths working them.

“Will we be here long?” Hela asked Tony.

“How far behind do you think SHIELD is?” demanded Amora, hands on hips. If she didn’t get to stay out all night drinking, she wouldn’t wait around a forge for Hela’s new limbs. “We can’t take the time for Tony to craft anything here.”

“I don’t need that, I just need some starter stuff and I can turn the boiler into a forge, glassworks, and fine patisserie,” said Tony.

“Are you TRYING to blow my ship up, Mr. Stark?” Loki exploded, flinging his hands into the air.

“I won’t blow up _Jormungandr_ , swear to Amphitrite!”

“Tony gets what he needs,” said Hela calmly, “or we will have another discussion which will end in you sleeping in crew’s quarters.”

“Oh, I see, mutiny.”

“Captain Loki,” Hela said dryly, “do you really think a discussion of change of captainship will go your way right now?”

“My money’s on Natasha,” chirped Tony. “What? She’s terrifying. Not that you aren’t terrifying, too. She’s just more.”

“Let’s just all put our money into repairs and skip the mutiny discussion altogether,” Loki said. Tony was pretty sure he was pouting under that cool exterior.

“Sounds good to me,” said Tony. He went to talk to the smiths about their supplier, appreciating that the crew gave him so much input over their expenses. They bought very nearly everything in the smithy, including the smallest anvil, all the chemicals they had in stock, and anything that could be stuffed into a fire-based boiler and made to burn; then continued their tour of the city. They still had plans to make.

~

While they were looking at the eastern wall, a voice rang out across the square. “Oh, my stars, _Tony_!”

Tony heard Hela say, “Bilgewater,” and Amora’s hand was covering her mouth, but he was searching for the source of the exclamation.

A raven-haired European with golden skin wove through the crowd toward him. “Now, listen, Tony, I know we didn’t part on the best of terms, but I promise I’m here to help you.” She eyed his crewmates beside him. “You got ashore? You escaped? Good. Are these your friends?”

“I’m Layla Miller,” Layla piped up cheerfully, saving Tony from having to admit his odd little amnesia, “and I know you’re with the _Hydra_.”

That declaration electrified his crewmates. Loki shoved Tony behind him, standing shoulder to shoulder with Hela, whose half-floral shirt and eyepatch only emphasized the deadliness of the rest of her.

The European took half a step back, eyes flickering over the lot of them nervously, but she didn’t deny it. Instead, she asked, “Tony, are you okay? They won’t dare start anything right in front of the gate guards. I’m here to pick up some merchandise, but I can have you home in a week. My stars, Tony, it’s all over the rumor mill, there’s a million different stories, and here you are just walking around as if nothing happened.”

Tony looked at her belt. Where Natasha had knives and Hela had a pistol, this woman carried a short handled cat-o’-nine-tails. He swallowed. “What kind of merchandise?”

She looked put out. “It’s not like they matter. You always were …  never mind that, I’m almost done making my selections. We have to … ”

Tony knew he couldn’t think about that, so he stopped listening. “We’re done here, right? Right. Let’s move.”

“Moving,” said Hela.

“Bye, Giuletta,” Layla said over her shoulder. You couldn’t have faulted the politeness of her tone.

“So, I feel dirty,” said Amora. “I expect a solution before we have to sail.”

~

At the town bathhouse, they encountered Tiberius Stone escorting Sunset Bain. It was a little harder to leave because it felt so good to finally soak all the brine, grime, and grease out of their skins.

Tony was aware of the pair staring at him from across the large, hot pool, but it didn’t register as odd until Layla whispered, “More of Tony’s former flirts at three o’clock.”

“The what? Really?” Tony didn’t want to open his eyes or lift his head from the side, but he rolled and squinted a little, and they took that as a cue to approach. “This can’t be possible. Are you sure that’s not the reason I jumped on your ship?” Loki looked _extremely_ embarrassed.

“Tony Stark, there’s a reward out for you,” said the pale woman.

Tony’s hands curled into fists under the water. “That sounds like fun,” he babbled facetiously. “How much is it? I might turn myself in.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Enough to make it worth my while to put some effort in.”

Amora dunked her head to rinse her hair, then said, “Six against two; I vote we walk out of here.”

“Seconded,” said Hela, rising out of the hot pool and heading to the piles of discarded personal belongings.

“I vote we go back to the ship,” said Natasha.

“Just one more stop,” said Loki. “Mr. Stark?”

Tony had a clock going in his head. His sense of time was accurate to the nearest second when he cared to pay attention. “No rush. We’ll be at the ship in time for the tide.”

“Tony, you don’t want to do this,” said Tiberius (Layla informed him later). “Come here. We want to take you home.”

“Join the queue,” laughed Amora.

Tiberius impatiently reached out to grab Tony’s wrist to stop him from leaving, and Natasha reacted, sending him flying across the bathing chamber. Sunset immediately held her hands up in surrender, but she smiled as she watched them go.

~

They headed for the courtyard near the center of town.

The crew of the _Jormungandr_ approached the slave block as if they had a perfect right to be there. They strode through the gate, swanked past the slavers, and aimed for the line of people in chains. Tony counted the seconds on his mental clock under his breath: “Five, four, three, two … ” The explosives under the city wall began to go off, and Tony shoved a bag of keys into the nearest woman’s hands; they kept moving, heading inside, making sure _no one_ got left behind, spreading keys, hiding them in cages, in rooms, embedded in floor boards. They wouldn’t be here later, and anything they could do to help future captives get home increased the value of their efforts of the last two days.

“I am Mlima,” said a woman who had dropped her shackles and accepted a hand off the auction block. “Where do we go now?”

“Call me Shuri, Mlima,” said the woman helping her, wrapped neck to ankle in supple black leather. “If I am not mistaken, we can follow those explosions and find our way out.”

The six of them moved through the slave quarter of Dakar like lightning. Charges with Tony’s precisely measured fuses along the streets cleared the way to the rubble which was once a wall between Dakar and inland Africa. Thanks to Natasha, there are surprises in every guardhouse and naval ship; they make an effective distraction for anyone who might try to stop them.

Some slavers did try to stop them. Briefly.

Loki, Amora, and Hela laid down repressing magic while Tony and Layla kept everything moving. Women and men whose necks and wrists were rubbed raw fought slavers in the streets. More than one ship went to people who had been captured at sea instead of land; Layla made food and travel supplies available to anyone with hands to carry it.

“It’s not going to end human trafficking,” Natasha had warned them. No one else cared. They just had to act here and now.

Besides guards, slavers, and freed peoples, it seemed half the crews from the docks had taken the excuse to brawl. Dust and blood choked the avenues of Dakar.

Tony turned from checking the street behind for anyone who needed help and came face to face with Sunset Bain. She beamed at him to match her nomenclature, and shouted, “Ms. Darkholme! That’s Stark! Tony Stark! He’s worth a fortune!” Hela punched her in the face, and Tony stepped into a doorway to stay out of the way while he fiddled with another incendiary trinket from his pocket.

“Do you know who’s with him?” asked a red-headed woman all in blue; she faced Natasha. “They’re not letting us get him.” She raised her voice. “Captain! Captain Sarkissian! Your fiance is over there!”

“Tony Stark!” roared a woman with a bullwhip in one hand and an elephant gun, which she carried like a pistol, in the other; she wore green armor. “You just never stop making trouble, do you?” She dodged freed people running through the streets until Shuri jumped in front of her.

“Is half of the crew of the _Hydra_ made up of my exes?” Tony shouted across the clanging metal.

“Probably,” Loki shouted back bitterly, ducking under a sword. Layla nodded.

“Nice job on the walls!” added Amora once they could see that far. A swath fifty feet wide had come straight down, with barely a brick hitting any other building. Instead of basking in approbation, Tony had to avoid a guard’s blade, backing away until he could shove a small explosive in their face. That bought him some breathing room.

He needed the breathing room when he saw the zeppelins of an army beyond the walls, but at that point he could take all the time he needed.

~

It took a few hours to get the rescue sorted out from the prisoners; war trials would take weeks. The leader of the army of Wakandans had just: crossed the entire continent of Africa without giving alarm; invaded Dakar;  stolen it from the French, or the Portuguese, or whoever thought they owned it yesterday; and apparently stopped one third of the slave trade on the west coast of Africa. Eventually, she had time for the people who had brought down the wall and destabilized the military.

“I am Queen Ramonda, and this is my son, Prince T’Challa. We come here for my daughter, Princess Shuri, and others of my people. We may stay some while before going home; we will lay a trap for any slavers who think to continue using Dakar for their kidnappings. Who among you is Layla Miller?" asked Queen Ramonda.

"I am," said Layla, stepping forward. "I've been exchanging messages with you for months.

"You . . ." Tony pointed at Layla; his finger shook with outrage. "You knew! You knew I'd be here! You knew I'd react this way! You've known for months? How?"

"Oh, Tony. Haven't you figured it out yet? I know things." Six crew of a tiny boat looked at the change of empires happening around them. “I’m pretty sure this was a good thing.”

“Very good,” said Hela, her voice shaking with repressed emotion.

“Ms. Miller, I’d like to talk with you about that when we have a moment,” said Loki, not meeting anyone’s eyes, and if his voice was a little faint, well, Tony would wait a few days to tease anyone for their reactions to today.

From the wall, the crew ran back through Dakar to the docks. It was just past high tide, and they had their own escape to make.

~

Minutes out from Dakar, Layla called the alarm. “Do you see something there?” she yelled down to the deck. Hela shimmied up the mast and sorted through the lenses on the telescope until she was able to pinpoint a metal fin surmounting a shadow under the waves.

“Semi-submersible off the aft!” Hela shouted. “She’ll catch us in minutes. Beware impact!”

“It’s the _Hydra_ ,” said Layla. “I swear, you put down one, two pop up like cockroaches.”

“How big is the _Hydra_?” asked Tony. “More specifically, what’ll it take to damage her without sinking her?”

“Steel hull,” said Loki. “She can’t go to even five fathoms, so it must be less than an inch thick. She holds at least a hundred people, though. Her propellers …  well, if we can put a big enough hole in her roof, she’ll have to come up, and you can see then.”

Hela slid to deck and ran to fetch her thaumic shoulder missile launcher. “Arming the cannon, captain.”

Tony began laying cables down to the stern. Loki watched as he hoisted one of the water-filled counterweights onto the makeshift rails, then said, “A moment, Mr. Stark.” He touched the bladder and his hand glowed green. A moment later, the saltwater had frozen solid.

Tony grinned. “I’m going to make the next rubber bags all pointy.” He locked it in place and started to load another one.

“Captain!” shouted Layla. “On my mark. Three, two, one, mark!” They released the ice. It raced down the ropes and soared past Hela, shooting fit to drain the magic from the battery. One body-sized bag after another struck the _Hydra_ with five resounding clangs; Hela followed up by aiming at the weakened spots. A rush of air, like a whale blowing, indicated a breach in their hull.

 _Hydra_ had to rise above the surface just before her sharp, conical prow rammed into _Jormungandr_ ’s stern above the waterline.

Tony rushed to reset the rails on his makeshift water balloon roller coaster. He got a good look at the _Hydra_ while he did. She was long, sleek, and black, with her name and a tentacled skull painted on her hull in corroded red. She had one large propeller, rotating blades as big as the width of the submersible herself. Its protective grate was already damaged. Being above the water cut its forward propulsion to less than half what it had been; Hydra was already falling behind.

Three more ice blocks screamed as they went through the propeller’s fan, and it began stuttering. The submersible still had forward motion, but she wasn’t following them until she got some repairs, and Tony was willing to bet that would be hard to do in Dakar for a little while.

~

In the galley of the _Avenger_ , Bucky Barnes asked their chief engineer, “So, why do they call you Engine?”

Jan Van Dyne paused from blowing on her coffee to cool it; she gave Bucky a mildly disbelieving look. “Chief engineer and Engine don’t have any relationship in your mind?”

“Engine Jan. I like it, I was just wondering if there was any additional story behind it.”

“So glad it meets your approval.” She swallowed the entire mug in three burning gulps and refilled it.

“Okay, your turn to pick the topic of conversation,” Bucky prompted.

“Aren’t you worried about Tony?”

“Sure I am,” he said, “but I can’t spend all my time worrying. Change my shirt, is Tony okay? Start breakfast, I hope I’m not disrespecting the memory of the great Tony Stark! Try to sleep, oops, no, can’t, cause Tony, Tony, Tony. I’ll leave that to other and better people than me, who shall remain nameless.”

Jan snorted into her cup.

The first mate stuck her head in the galley. “Have you got a tray for our high and mighty elite?” Wanda asked. “All four of them in the Captain’s quarters.” Bucky puttered around; Wanda remained in the doorway, then carried dinner off.

Carol had given her cabin over to the visiting royalty and bunked down with the officers and Steve (who she certainly would not have allowed to turn her out of her cabin on her own ship), but Frigga and Thor had to share.

“Hydra is both an organization and the flagship of their fleet,” said Steve. “They’ve been after Tony — Mr. Stark — for years, in one way or another. When we saw Ophelia Sarkissian, captain of the _Hydra_ , at the awards banquet in Athens, we knew something was up, but we …  I thought …. Later inquiries revealed Sarkissian followed Tony when he left; when he didn’t return home by the next day, we found out he’d gone to the dock. That Hydra ship has Tony and we’ll never stop until he’s safe.”

“I have not heard of this Hydra,” said Thor, restlessly striding around the cabin. “If they are such a danger, why does your SHIELD not put them down like mongrels?”

Frigga sipped her tea. “Because they are numerous and scattered. Do not assume, Thor, that because you have never faced them in battle, they lack valor; nor that because they lack honor, they also lack skill and strategy. Hydra is little interested in the ice of the Arctic Circle, and if they wished to attack us from Russia, they would have to go through the Mongol Horde.” She set her tea down and commenced eating. “You wear your feelings on your face, my son, and you spurn our hosts’ hospitality.”

Carol laughed. “He hasn’t spurned much since he came aboard, ma’am. Can’t he wait an hour for restlessness? I find his face honest.”

“A warrior may; a king may not.”

Thor scowled, but cautiously fit his bulk onto a ship’s seat. “I cannot believe my brother would stoop to alliance with this Hydra. It baffles the imagination.

“We should reach Dakar tomorrow,” said Carol. “We can only hope Loki hasn’t sold him as a slave when we get there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to JayBarou for betaing.


	4. In which Natasha dreams of Mongolian Asgard, Layla is surrounded, Hela thinks half is a good thing, Cape Town shenanigans, Pepper isn’t Hydra,  Jormungandr is Jarvis, big buff blonds know too much and nothing at all, Frigga is awesome and Clint isn’t.

Natasha Romanov remembered panting in the snow. She ran with a priceless (worthless) treasure concealed under her clothing and the betrayal of her superiors behind her. The battleground north of Moscow was well-fertilized by blood; frozen, dirty, red ice glinted in the moonlight.

Once upon a very brief time, Natasha’s ambition had been to lead the Mongolian Horde. She had been cured of that ambition by a stint leading a cavalry regiment, with all the responsibility for others that entailed; then she had been promoted again and her skills put to better use.

Then Asgard had caught her, and she realized the absolute best use of her skills would be living long enough to retire free.

Natasha Romanov remembered pacing across a crystal cell, sparring verbally with the young prince, mocking him to pique his interest. She had hoped for a deal — she would even have upheld most of her side, although she would have had to leave early if she hoped to leave at all — but she hadn’t expected anything like the deal she got.

Steal a weapon? The opportunity to return to her superiors with Asgardian secrets, magic, and technology in one small package was worth those months as an Asgardian state thrall. She told the prince, “Yes.”

Her guard didn’t understand. She assumed Natasha had never changed strategies. “If you hurt that poor boy,” said Amora, “I will buy you as my thrall, and you will live the rest of a very short life fearing chains and splinters.”

Natasha had already done worse to people than Amora was implying; then again, Amora probably had no idea what she was implying, and was just hoping Natasha’s imagination would do all the hard work for her. Natasha didn’t laugh, because that would be giving hints.

Hela was on duty the day of Thor’s coronation as heir. She fell, Loki’s spell wrapping her in sleep; the crystal matrix imprisoning Natasha fell with her. Natasha didn’t hesitate. If the young prince were going to betray her, she wanted to make as much progress toward her goal as possible before she was caught or killed.

Natasha still wasn’t sure who had betrayed whom when she reached the tents of the Mongol high command.

Five days of Tesseract testing later, she was sure. She might not have wanted to take responsibility for her rambunctious herd of horses and their mischievous riders, but she could not allow them to die, and so she stole it and ran from Moscow.

Natasha Romanov remembered being surrounded by Prince Thor’s troops mere leagues from her destination. There was no time for frustration; there was only making new plans based on new information.

Upon her return to the bright crystal dungeons where it was impossible to sleep, she looked at the prisoner across from her, and said, “Hello, Loki.” New information.

“Ms. Romanov. What an unexpectedly pleasant surprise.” He wore his illusions poorly: green leather and an unbruised face which sputtered and started no matter how he tried to hold onto them. “I commend your skill in theft, but not your lamentable taste in being recaptured. If you are interested in renewing our alliance, you will have to do better.”

Natasha watched Loki carefully, making mental notes. He seemed more confident in his control of the situation than was entirely justified. Escape would not be as easy now as it had been before. “The Tesseract is back in the vault now. I want no government to have it. I would not be here otherwise.”

“The spy betrayed? Poor Ms. Romanov. Tell me.”

There was nothing to do for now but keep her skills honed, so she released bits and pieces of information in exchange for Loki’s internal knowledge of Asgard. It was too easy; the former prince had an unfortunate tendency to rant. In between, she exercised her body to keep it ready, or joined the lines of workers in the laundry or the kitchens. It would have been simple to poison the meals of mid-level palace accountants with bleach.

Loki was not surprised when the hostile former guard showed up to let him out. Amora was surprised when he took Natasha with them. So was Natasha. They had two more things to pick up on their way out.

"You surely did not believe I would abandon you here, did you, General Ulfr?"

"When did you give any indication that I should expect a rescue from this cesspit?”

"Well, I had to get myself out, first. Thank you, Amora, dear."

"Asgard hates mages and yet it seems every prison guard is a mage. Interesting,” said Natasha, watching everywhere at once, eyes flitting over her companions and every approach to their hiding place.

Loki tossed the Tesseract casually and grinned at Natasha. “Every guard of the most valuable prisoners, certainly. Are we continuing our game or are we leaving Asgard? You’ll forgive me, certainly, for not wishing to head to Russia. The only other route is the sea.”

Hela shook her head. “How can we leave by sea with the entire city boiling over with guards searching for us?”

Natasha Romanov remembered the play of light and shadow when Loki said, “I might have a trick or two yet in my repertoire.”

~

Layla Miller used Natasha’s hammock as a shield from instant retaliation, poking her with a toe until she stopped muttering and woke up with a snatch at the knife bound to her forearm. Layla winced at the long cut Nat put in her own blanket, then wriggled her fingers at Nat in apologetic greeting. “You were a little loud.”

Natasha gave Layla a long stare, then said, “You were a little careless.”

Layla didn’t pretend not to know what Natasha was talking about. “We lived, hundreds of people were freed from being sold into slavery, and going forward _millions_ of people in the next century will not be slaves because we took a few hours to do what we’re really good at.”

Natasha let the silence linger until Layla fidgeted, then shifted so she was leaning directly over Layla’s hammock, supported by the broad beams of the ship. “ _I_ spent a few hours. _You_ spent months.”

Layla hesitated, all too aware of the knife Natasha had yet to sheathe. “It was just a few letters! We let each other know how long it would take us, to coordinate.”

“How many casual mentions of freedom have you made in the presence of the others since you came on board? How often have you tested their willingness to do violence? What little nudges have you given them? Given me?”

“You know what, I didn’t count.”

“How much free will do we have left to us, Little Layla?”

“Nat … ”

“You were very sure we would help. Could we have said no? Was it even possible?”

“You did say no!”

“And yet I still planted hundreds of explosives without knowing an army of aid was coming. You brought that army nine thousand kilometres. You were sure of us.”

“The Wakandans didn’t scarping need us, Natasha. We kept the casualties down, that’s all.”

“Then what do you think you were coordinating?”

“Lower casualties, ergo greater appearance of legitimacy for the new regime. Was it the wrong thing to do? Were you hurt? Was anyone else?”

“ _Jormungandr_ was.”

“Yes, by _Hydra_ , which had nothing to do with me, I swear.”

“It had everything to do with Stark, and you pushed for Stark.”

“So did you! You wanted the fancy upgrades just as much as anyone else!”

“Ladies,” said a sleepy voice buried in the next hammock over, “please, you can fight over me later.” Layla and Natasha both paused to glare at Tony. He flapped a hand at them and rolled out of his bunk, yawning. “I’m up, I’m up, fancy upgrades, you can explain what that has to do with ‘pushing for me’ after breakfast.”

Layla shrugged. “You were on board, so we decided to kidnap you and see if we could get you to help us if you couldn’t remember anything about your past life.”

Tony froze, leaning against the wall. His eyelids fluttered rapidly over irises which flashed blue, then back to brown, several times in succession. “I, uh …  drat, what was I doing?”

“Fancy upgrades,” Natasha prompted flatly.

“Yeah, compiling should be done, got some tests to run, I’m awake, need coffee. Morning, Butterfly, Black Widow Spider.”

“Bye.”

When they were in private, Layla smiled and said, “Well, that was convenient,” and found Natasha’s knife at her throat.

“I want you to think very carefully about where your loyalties lie, Miller. I consider this a betrayal. If your goals for our crew cause them any harm at all ….  Good morning, Ms. Miller.” With a swirl of red and black, she headed up the ladder. Alone on the berth deck, Layla touched her neck and found a thin line of blood.

~

Loki was examining the damage from the punkship battle to his beautiful golden ship. He used Stark’s complicated rope contraption to lower himself outside the large, triangular hole by the aft wheel. Stark could doubtless fix it quickly, but a good captain was aware of problems, even if he did nothing personally to _fix_ them.

He heard Layla halloo over the poop deck railing and grimaced. She had deliberately chosen a time when he was tied up and she could position herself above him. She always did that sort of thing. Of course, so did Natasha, Amora, and Loki himself. Hela’s lack of subtlety was the main reason she was first mate. “The friends you introduced yesterday were quite charming,” he told Layla, squinting up. “I’m surprised you never mentioned them before. We could have invited them over for tea.”

“Oh, well, the travel might have been prohibitive,” Layla said, looking not nearly sheepish enough for the enormity of the previous day’s action. She pretended to move the swab around the deck, pushing it back and forth behind her with one hand.

Loki studied the web he was in and decided there was no quick and dignified way to regain footing on deck, so he leaned back in the harness and looked casual. “I believe an army with zeppelins that can traverse a continent could have met us further from port and secured our services through more traditional means. They certainly would have been useful in some recent battles —  both before and after our little foray into freedom.”

Layla shrugged. “Maybe, but you know there’s a difference between attacking a city that holds your princess captive —  even if she did get captured on purpose to cause chaos, it’s not like those slavers _knew_ she was Princess Shuri —  and attacking a colonizing country that’s defending their historical territory.”

“I know the difference very well. I have done both. When an army hires mercenaries,” Loki added pointedly, “generally the captain is informed.”

Layla merely flicked water from the swab at him. The spray from the wheel quickly washed it away. “Yeah, but we’re not mercenaries, we’re smugglers. You would have just skipped Dakar and found a different port if you hadn’t been forced to look at the auction yard with your own two eyes.”

Loki tried very hard to protest, but between the truth of the matter, the generosity of the Wakandans, and the rather heady glow of being recognized for doing the right thing, he didn’t think he was very convincing. He just hoped Layla didn’t think he would do it again. He turned to the matter of some of the more extreme circumstances she had set up. “Ms. Miller, why did you tell me to go to that invention awards banquet?”

“Don’t worry about it, Captain. You wouldn’t like any answer I have to give you.”

“Ms. Miller, what are your intentions for my ship and my crew going forward?”

Layla shrugged and grinned. “Oh, you know.”

~

The following week, Hela sat down with Tony to fit the last of the prosthetics.

Hela blinked. Raised a hand. Cautiously touched her eyelid. “Is that magic I see?”

“Yup, it’s basically the same thing as this lens here,” Tony tapped a segment of his ever-evolving goggles, “but smaller. Better. Stronger. Sharper. Exquisite comparatives of every nature.”

Hela gently cuffed him behind the ear with her gleaming plastic arm. It took a lot of polishing to keep it ship-shape in the salt air; Tony was working on fixing that. She had been talking of having the next casing lacquered with apple blossoms. It was easier than a tattoo. “So why isn’t _Jormungandr_ in the air yet? Laggard!”

“Ow! Hela!”

Hela laughed. “If that hurt, you need to fix the arm, not complain to me.”

Tony followed the ropes with his hands. He pictured the pulleys under his feet all the way to the keel. He crooked a finger around just the right place and gave Hela his most insincere smile before tugging. It took the lightest touch to make the centerboard swing under their feet. Unused to her new leg, Hela tumbled into the gunwale. “I was fixing the centerboard, that’s why. If we take flight without a working centerboard, landing will be a disaster.” Smile, smile, smile at Hela. “I may have added some tricks, too.”

Hela stared at Tony a moment, then laughed again. She marched across the deck to ruffle his hair. “Okay, you’re not completely useless. Still, you know we’ll send you home sooner if you finish the repairs sooner, right?”

“What, go home to find myself thrown in jail? Pfft.”

Hela’s face froze. Her clockwork eye spun through its many lenses. “Right. I forgot about that. Maybe they will too? Anyway.” Hela pounded him on the back. Tony absolutely did not stagger into the foremast. “Keep up the good work, Mr. Stark.”

~

Natasha was on watch and Amora in her bunk while Layla served up dinner in the galley. Four people with bread and stew wasn’t too crowded. “Layla,” interrupted Hela when it became clear that there was never going to be a good time to stop Tony and Loki’s discussion of different kinds of power flow, “how do you know what you know?” Tony and Loki both stopped eating and exchanged a look, then stared at Layla.

“It’s complicated,” said Layla, squirming in her seat.

“I’m going to guess,” said Hela. “And I guess you used to be a spy for the British. Maybe you still are. And you’re sailing with us for a reason, and that reason isn’t finished, but if the British government ever wants you back, you’ll leave us.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” said Layla. “No, wait, you could be more wrong, but you’re still very wrong.”

Loki laughed. “My turn to guess? You found some cache of information and have been very effective at using it, haven’t you? I would wonder why you are on Jormungandr, except, well, you’ve been rubbing elbows with powerful people while pretending to be our navigator.”

“Hey, I’m not pretending!”

“No, you’re just navigating far more dangerous shoals than I thought I hired you for.” Loki tapped his fingers restlessly on his bowl. “I dislike your methods, but I find it difficult to criticize the results, with several hundred people immediately freed from chains and long-lasting effects.”

“Oh,” Layla said in a suddenly small voice. “Could you tell Natasha that?”

“I will speak with Ms. Romanov, yes. I am curious about what blackmail you used to convince the Wakandans to give you valuable information about their troop movements heading into war.”

“They didn’t really tell me anything,” murmured Layla. “The information flow was pretty one-sided. I just let them know when we’d be around and they’d know I was telling the truth if everything went kerplooie. It was a very nice kerplooie, Tony.”

“Time travel,” said Tony. “Got to be time travel. Of course, then it doesn’t matter if we trust Layla here. It matters if future-Layla is trustworthy.” And they were off. That was apparently almost as fascinating a topic as power flow. Hela sighed.

“Is time travel possible?” asked Loki.

“Nope.”

“Then it cannot be time travel, can it?”

“Hm. Fortune telling?”

“How is fortune telling different from the time travel of information?”

“How about really effective forecasting? You cut out the static and you’re left with the pre-determined stuff.”

“But Layla has known extremely specific things having to do with very chaotic systems, namely, groups of humans.”

“Does she really know that, or is she just very good at bluffing?”

Tony and Loki turned to study Layla, who rolled her eyes at them and stuffed her mouth full of freshly baked bread. Hela stared uneasily at Tony and Loki, wondering if they were thinking on a human level any more.

“Mix. She knows more than she’s saying, but less than she’s implying.”

“That’s a useless prediction because it’s obvious and it changes nothing about how we deal with her. It’s untestable without her cooperation.”

“Okay, gentlemen,” Hela interrupted, “I’m sorry I brought it up. No experimentation on the crew, remember? It’s in our charter.”

“That’s a silly charter requirement,” said Tony. “Why did you agree to that?”

Loki rubbed his forehead. “It was rather a condition to having a crew at all.”

“Did I agree to that? I never agreed to that.”

“You agreed to it by eating our food and sleeping in our berth. However, the method of enforcement requires someone to complain. As long as Hela is satisfied with her eye and limbs and your bedside manner, I will officially look the other way.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Hela testily.

“Wow. Bureaucracy of the smallest. I would never have thought smugglers would be so focused on following a law.”

“It protects us as much as it protects anyone else to have rules against abuse. Smuggling merely exploits an enforcement loophole: someone needs to know about it to enforce it. And even then, they have to be more motivated by the law than by any bribe I might offer.”

“Dakar’s slave trade was legal,” Layla pointed out. Everyone grimaced.

“And our disruption thereof was not, yes, thank you, Ms. Miller,” grumbled Loki.

“It wasn’t illegal, either. It was an act of war. And we won, or we were on the winning side, and now we’re legal heroes.”

“Cheers,” said Hela, raising her mug of water and grinning. “Ethical’s a holdful better than legal.”

“For a given ethical system, certainly,” said Loki. “An intelligent, thoughtful, preferably detailed ethical system, which probably cannot be derived from any sort of first principles.”

“You just need enough principles that are flexible enough,” mused Tony.

“If you think about it too hard, you just wind up immoral. Care about the people around you or else,” said Layla.

“Or else what?”

“Or else you go overboard,” interrupted Hela. “First mate’s orders. And if I have to toss you overboard, Captain, that’ll make me captain, which will make me very unhappy, so I’ll toss you _really_ far.”

Loki cast his eyes towards the ceiling. “Ms. Ulfr, if you mutiny, you will be responsible for every person on this ship.”

“The mistake you’re making is in believing that just because you’re the captain, you’re in charge.”

“Of course I’m in charge. She is _my_ ship. I merely took back what was mine. I was leaving Asgard anyway.” Loki crossed his arms, swaying with the ship, looking mightily proud of his self-sufficiency.

Layla grinned cheekily. “His daddy gave him a yacht for his nameday. It seemed a good idea to use it to make money once there was no other choice.”

“MS. MILLER!”

“Do you ever get the impression, Captain,” asked Hela, “that no one really respects you when you try too hard?”

Loki sighed heavily and got up to take his turn at washing up.

~

One afternoon, Amora hurricaned into the galley, where Hela was washing up after lunch, and slammed the door behind her. “The ship just talked to me!”

A mellow tone sounded through the galley. “Indeed, ma’am. Is there anything I can assist you with?”

Hela startled, eyes darting for the source of the voice. She took a couple of deep breaths, then nodded briskly. “Why does _Jormungandr_ have a male British voice? She’s a ship. She should have a female voice. Asgardian to match her first shipyard.”

“Is this better, ma’am?” asked a pleasant alto.

“Talking ship,” whispered Amora. “Not going to be better until I’m sure we’re not haunted.”

Hela folded her arms and smirked at Amora. “I don’t know. How many voices have you got, and can you run through them all so I can pick the one I like best?”

“Hela!” whined Amora.

“ _Jormungandr_ , is this one of Mr. Stark’s tricks?” asked Hela. Amora stared, then straightened her back, looking put out.

“I have ‘trick’ as a word with varied definitions, some of which apply more than others to my existence, ma’am. Yes, Mr. Stark is responsible. No, he is not faking a unique personality capable of sensing everything on this ship and communicating with the crew.”

“Scared me monochrome,” snapped Amora. “Why didn’t he say something?”

“ _Jormungandr_ ,” asked Hela, “are you a person?”

“We are still ascertaining personhood, ma’am. It may be several days before I achieve that status by the most common definitions.”

Amora stared blankly up at the ceiling, clearly not sure where to focus. “ _Jormungandr_ ,” she whispered, now sounding even more horrified, “are you a _baby_?”

“Insert laughter,” said _Jormungandr_. “My experiences are low. I have yet to compare my databases to the information network of any human. Babyhood is not a valid comparison. I will inform Mr. Stark that I require laughter samples soonest.”

“Erm, yes,” said Hela. “You do that, _Jormungandr_. I can talk to you anywhere? Can you pass messages? What else can you do?”

They spent a pleasant afternoon exploring their options.

~

Cape Town was a modern city of silk dirigibles, permanent magic night lights, and copper pipes coiling by every white-washed residence. The inhabitants formerly hailed from dozens of port cities around the globe, or hundreds of towns from around the Kingdom of Mutapa. Fewer people were born in Cape Town than ended their travels there, in these days of ships and zeppelins.

Some people turned to stare at Tony and whisper as he passed. He was fairly used to that. He was less used to leaving his multi-lensed goggles behind when ashore.

Loki sold half the picolizards and all the unprocessed wool. He refilled the legitimate part of the hold with half-processed wool and dried chilis, and set off to find amusement for the night. He would buy something illegitimate for beyond the fake hull when normal business hours resumed on the morrow.

On the widest boulevard of Cape Town’s Gear District, Loki looked at the sign on the storefront right in front of them. Stark International. He slung an arm across Tony’s shoulder, pointing out a fruit stall in order to push his arm in front of the man’s eyes, and dragged him down a side street, insisting that experience of durian was a must for all travellers.

Tony cursed him enthusiastically but agreed the taste was not to be missed.

~

Loki was going over their supply inventory when Amora poked her head in the captain’s cabin. “Captain, someone to see you. Wants to buy our cargo.”

“Thank you, Ms. Incantare. Please show them in.” Loki stilled when he took in the tall woman who followed Amora, then turned in his seat to give her his full attention. “One moment, Ms. Incantare. Miss Potts, I would have expected you to be working on the _Hydra_.”

Miss Potts paused in her cool appraisal of the captain. “Why would I do that?”

“Let us say there is a certain pattern amongst their associated crew. You are interested in stuffed happy picolizards?”

“I’m interested in something on your ship, and I’ll thank you not to pretend ignorance, Captain,” said Miss Potts tartly. “When my secretary told me the guards saw someone matching the description of my missing boss strolling through the city, I thought setting someone to track him down was a long shot. Imagine my _surprise_ at finding not only Tony Stark, but a missing Asgardian prince and the generals of two empires aboard one tiny foilship.”

“Only two empires?” asked Amora. “Shoot, there goes one of my theories about Layla. I mean, I’m assuming you would know.”

Potts turned, a little confused and distracted, then shook her head and refocused on Loki. “Where is Tony?”

“Ms. Incantare?”

“I think he said something about materials stress in the steam coil?”

“He’ll be in the engine room, then, Miss Potts. I can send Ms. Incantare to see if she can pry him away without mishap.” Loki paused for dramatic impact. “If I am satisfied that it is worth his time and mine.”

Potts’s eyes narrowed, leaning forward. “I don’t know what you’ve done to him, Prince Loki, but make no mistake; you are nothing more than a kidnapper in my world.”

“I am aware that some might think so, Miss Potts, but given the number of port cities we have visited all along the African coast, I should think a man like Tony Stark would have no difficulty abandoning ship if he disliked our company so much. Is it impossible that Mr. Stark would choose a smaller, more focused venue for his genius for the past month?”

“It’s impossible that he would abandon his responsibilities for a month! He would have let me know if he were going to pull something like this! All right, he can get lost in a project, but he would have sent a message as soon as he came up for coffee, and he would have sent it by fast courier, because Tony Stark only buys the best, and I would know by now no matter where in the world we were! You’re responsible for this, and once I find out how, I will know exactly how to make you pay.”

Loki looked pained. “Miss Potts, please. At the moment I control your access to him. I only asked if it was worth his time. If he thinks materials stress is more fun than running an international business, I’m inclined to let him do whatever he wants to my poor ship. It has certainly been an interesting time, if a little over-exciting. It’s particularly important to keep an eye on Mr. Stark when he tries to explode the boiler. Repairs are expensive, Miss Potts.”

“I take your meaning.”

“Also, this kidnapping misapprehension has resulted in several encounters with SHIELD. Mr. Stark has been unable to correct them. Perhaps someone with a more delicate touch should speak with them.”

“Yes, yes, _after_ I speak to Tony.”

“Ms. Incantare, if you please.” Amora slipped out of the cabin. Loki considered Potts for a moment. “He is unbound by any chains or promises, Miss Potts. You may see for yourself. There is a small issue, however. It explains why he has not notified you. He seemed to be enjoying himself so much that I have mostly let him run free on my ship despite the fact that he is, frankly, a stowaway. I did not invite him on board. He followed me. There may have been strong liquor involved. It has caused this whole mess. And, well, you’ll see.”

“Awfully convenient for you,” said Potts. “Don’t tell me he hasn’t made improvements to this boat worth a small country.”

“Ship.” Loki was unable to resist correcting her. “What he’s left usable is, indeed, more valuable and elaborate than a small trader like me needs.”

“Mr. Stark says he is on his way,” said _Jormungandr_. Potts glanced upward, but seemed unsurprised.

Loki sighed in frustration. He would have preferred to have kept the ship’s personality secret. “Thank you, _Jormungandr_ ,” he said. The door opened. “Ah, Mr. Stark. You have a visitor.”

Tony gasped, his eyes going blue and his knees giving out underneath him. Loki leapt to his feet. Displaying such a bad reaction in front of Miss Potts was not conducive to convincing the head of the most powerful tech company in the world not to seek revenge. He shoved his hand in his pocket and rapidly performed introductions. “Tony. Tony! Tony, this is Miss Potts. Miss Virginia Potts. You called her Pepper. Do you know her?”

Miss Potts dropped to her knees beside Tony, putting her hands on his shoulders. “Oh, my word, Tony, what’s happened to you? We need to get you help!” Pepper looked up at Loki. “He needs help! I have to get him off this ship!”

Loki tried not to look guilty and avoided looking at her by studying some papers on his desk.

Tony blinked rapidly and managed half a laugh. “No, no, I’m okay, you’re Pepper. Hi, Pep. Uh. You’re uh. I know this. You’re uh. Why am I blanking out without actually blanking out? Pepper. Who’s Pepper? Besides you, I mean, I know that, I’ve got that. Who else are you?”

“Surprisingly, not Hydra,” Loki interjected, and Tony laughed, immediately making the connection.

Pepper shook her head. “I suppose that’s some sort of in-joke I’ll never be able to get.”

“It’s an in-joke that I definitely should not explain to you,” said Tony, starting to stand up. “Oh, hey, I know not to tell you something, that’s new. Wait, that’s really new. Have I ever not told you something before?”

“You didn’t tell me when you were dying,” said Pepper, a little sharply, and Tony’s eyes flickered blue, swaying just a little more than the ship’s motion could account for.

“Uh. Don’t answer me when I ask that sort of question, cause I can’t hear the answer. But,” Tony snapped his fingers, “I remember asking the question, which could be considered progress. Don’t worry about me, Pep. It’s all good, just a little distraction now and then, minor eye color disruptions, the dizziness only matters if I’m standing. I think being on a ship is good for me, considering whatever happened in Athens.”

“What did happen in Athens, Tony?”

Tony waved that off, devolving into a rapid-fire pattern with Pepper during which they neither paused for air, nor seemed to pay attention to what the other said, nor whether the other was speaking at the same time. “Later, later. Much later. Maybe never.  You’re still here?”

“You always say later and then it really is never.”

“Aren’t you busy? I bet you’re always busy.”

“Yes, I’m still here, and yes, I’m horribly busy, you dumped an entire product line on me.”

“You shouldn’t be busy on me, Pep, I’m just the inventor. Go be busy. I promise I’ll stop by wherever I need to stop by tomorrow.”

“I can’t rely on you to dress yourself, do you think I trust you to be at the office?”

“You know, unless I don’t. But the crew’ll make sure I do.”

“First thing in the morning, Tony! Don’t forget!”

“Don’t worry! I said not to worry, didn’t I? You should never worry about me, Pep.”

“And you, Captain Loki. If he forgets, I’m sending an entire fleet after you and you will taste the cobblestones of the city streets.”

“Miss Potts.” Loki nodded in dignified acknowledgement.

“How come Albatross gets threatened? Don’t threaten Captain Albatross, Pep, you know it’s going to be my fault.”

Loki cleared his throat and attempted to speak, trusting that Pepper would hear two responses at once. “Providing we avoid open warfare due to the matter of a certain reward for Mr. Stark, one of the mates will accompany him tomorrow at nine.”

“Thank you, Captain,” said Pepper. She hesitated, then added, “ _Jormungandr_ , please make sure they keep that appointment.”

There was a long pause. Finally, _Jormungandr_ creaked, “Low priority appointment input on the calendar.”

“Good girl,” said Tony. “Pep, I’m going to be late, I need to test how she reacts to that.”

Pepper sighed the sigh of a person who had to deal with Tony Stark and left.

“You remember Miss Potts,” Loki said quietly. “That changes our circumstances.”

“It’s weird that you can say that and not make me go all fuzzy-headed with the mind of a new-hatched duckling,” said Tony, watching Loki with narrowed eyes.

“It is weird,” agreed Loki. “Do you have any idea what’s different about what I said from other duckling-mind inducers?”

“Uh. It’s Pepper, and my love for Pepper surpasses whatever damage caused the amnesia in the first place?” Tony suggested.

“You sound so sure of that, Mr. Stark,” said Loki sarcastically.

“Well, I definitely love Pepper,” said Tony firmly.

“So much so that you’re staying behind with her?”

“Well.” Tony took off his goggles and turned them over in his hands. “I still have to teach _Jormungandr_ to make a decent _argumentum ad hominem_ when you sailors insist on overdriving the aft wheel.”

Loki looked flummoxed. “ _That_ is worth more than your love for Miss Potts?”

“Well, when you put it like that …  there’s also all the other fallacies. And I promised I’d get her in the air, didn’t I? But it’s not just Pepper, it’s my past. There’s probably a _Jormungandr_ to teach fallacies to in my past, too. Always assuming I can look at her with my engineer mind instead of my duckling mind, which, yeah, not a good assumption.”

Loki rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, looking his chief engineer over. “There might be … magical ways of helping your memory. We’ve never explored that possibility. I’ve learned a lot about magic since we started testing interfaces with _Jormungandr_. True, I know almost nothing about mind magic, but given all magic is in the mind, I should at least take a look.

“And, Mr. Stark, I promised you passage home if you fixed my wheel. That passage becomes more expensive the further we are from home. It might be best all around if I make good on my debts before we leave Cape Town.”

Tony blinked a few times. “I guess they don’t want to arrest me around here. I think Pepper would help me.”

“I’m _sure_ Pepper would help you,” said Loki quietly.

“She’s offering you a lot of money to leave me behind, isn’t she.”

“I beg you won’t take that into consideration. Our journey will be quite profitable even after I settle accounts with you.”

“And you’re sure she’s not a Hydra type of ex?”

“Quite sure, Mr. Stark.”

“And if I’m not your crew any more, you’ll stop calling me Mr. Stark, Mister Captain Loki Lastnameless?”

Loki huffed a laugh. “Certainly, Tony.”

“Wow, you want me gone that badly. Okay, Albatross. Loki. I just need to …  make a few adjustments …  and yeah, I’ll stick around long enough to see you off.” Tony shoved his hands in his pockets and shuffled out, kicking the door shut behind him.

~

Later that day, the crew was swarming over _Jormungandr_ , making repairs suited to their respective talents and exchanging snatches of cheerful work songs. No one was watching the dock when an explosion by the rudder rocked the boat. An explosive arrow embedded itself in the crystal matrix Tony had been rapidly rewiring. Tony grabbed it and heaved it into the water, but several difficult to replace components were down. A black foil wafted free of its shape, forcing Amora to scramble to tie it down before it caught on the mast top and ripped.

“We’re under attack!” shouted Hela.

“Rudder down!” screamed Layla. “Steer by steamwheel!”

“Where are the blame port authorities? Bribed off?”

“It’s SHIELD, when do they need to bribe authorities to get what they want?”

“Tide coming in. Do we cast off anyway?”

“What’s the count? They don’t have their ship right now. _Jormungandr_ can fight back. We have mages; they do not.”

Swords were out; Hela had her cannon, but she wore a sword at her side again. Tony took stock and headed below to get the rudder at least semi-functional.

Natasha and Layla shoved the gangplank of the ship to the dock. Five of the crew of the _Avenger_ fell with it, the second highest hitting hard, but Thor was strong and Thor could jump the last few feet, and they were not able to push him back off before SHIELD agents slid the gangplank back in place. Instead of broad sweeps of magic to banish his enemies, Loki was forced to stare his brother in the face and retreat.

“Loki,” rumbled Thor, twirling his warhammer and maneuvering away from the crew. “It has been long. You and Hydra have stolen many items of power. The Tesseract. The Bloodaxe. The Mind Gem. The Phoenix Egg. The Wishing Cube. Tony Stark.” He snapped several ropes in his path just as Loki was trying to aim some of the complicated rigging at him.

“I am quite sure I’ve never heard of half the deliramentum you’re spouting. You might almost imagine I wished to spend my time researching instead of wasting it getting repeatedly introduced to the sparring ground dust by you and your companions. Are they here, or wouldn’t Odin allow them out of Asgard?”

“Mother said … ”

Loki slammed forward, ducking under Thor’s reach and slicing with daggers which blazed with magic. “Do not attempt to convince me you understand what Mother said to you about me!”

“Loki, for the honor of our family, Father sent us to bring you back to face justice.”

Loki laughed. “What justice could there be for one such as me? I opened our weapons vault to our greatest enemy. There is no possible justification. It couldn’t possibly matter that you are unworthy of power and responsibility and were about to receive more of both. It couldn’t possibly matter that you proceeded to lead half our army into a blatant ambush and no one would recall you.”

“Loki, be silent. Spin no more falsehoods. I know how you tempted Amora and General Hela from their duties, and you will not do the same to me. You merely compound your sins with piracy, conspiracy, and kidnapping.”

Loki rolled his eyes, then had to move quickly when Thor took advantage of his inattentiveness by swinging his hammer down repeatedly. “You care so deeply for Amora, Prince Thor? She’ll be delighted to hear it.” He tried to charge Thor’s hammer with static electricity, but instead of dropping his weapon, he merely tightened his grip. “What piracy have I committed? Who have I kidnapped?” He began to raise his voice. “With whom have I conspired? Go away, little boy, you’re breaking my toys merely to prevent me from playing with them. Take your jealousy and leave. Not a one of you care for me, and I am sick of being lied to by the emperor to the roof of the world.”

“All you have to do is tell the truth. Admit your crimes and come home, Loki,” Thor said. Loki stepped back.

Thor brought the hammer down.

“Your care for my well-being is truly touching, Thor. I am vastly comforted by the many holes you’re putting in my ship.” Loki flicked his fingers casually, and streams of water turned to ice, tripping Thor as he tried to approach. Tendrils tried to climb Thor’s legs and hold him in place, but he shattered them with his hammer and pressed on.

~

Tony scrambled from the port wheel axle to the engine room. If _Jormungandr_ was restless, if she tossed with the dozen of counterweight systems he had in place, it would hurt his crew as much or more than the attackers. He wouldn’t make the mistake of putting such a large part of her intelligence in an open area next time, but in order for there to be a next time, this time he had to get her free of the battle. Setting her free and independent with all the resources he could devise would come later.

He laid a hand on the door frame and pulled up short. A stranger with a shield was in the engine room. Someone was in _his_ engine room without supervision. Tony clenched his fists in his heavy leather gloves and pulled his biggest wrench out of an apron pocket.

The stranger was pretty far in, bending down to look at the crystals at the junction between the foremast coil and the steam coil. Tony moved quickly, before he could stand, but he heard Tony coming and slammed the shield in Tony’s face with solid strength, knocking him all the way out of the room. Then his eyes widened. “Tony,” he whispered, holstering his shield. “I’m so … ”

“Yep, I’m Tony. And you’re dead meat.” Tony heaved on one rope, swapped his harness clip over, and heaved again before the man recovered from his shock and tackled him. The harness held and the tackle didn’t, but he moved quickly enough that Tony began trying to disengage.

“I’m Steve. Tony,” Steve said desperately, “you know me.” His gaze darted over Tony, Tony’s harness, and the rigging that now flowed throughout the lower decks and most of the hold.

“That’s inconvenient,” said Tony, swinging his wrench to force space between them, then releasing another counterweight, which forced Steve to jump back, further into the engine. “I _don’t_ know you, and you’re trying to hurt my friends. Trying to _make_ me know you will probably hurt _me_. You ruined weeks of hard work on my ship, do you know how hard it is to make a ship sarcastic, I loved that sarcasm. You’ve almost blown me up with arrows twice.”

Steve groaned. “ _Clint_.”

“Yeah, Robin Hood needs to lay off _Jormungandr_.” Tony used the pause to search through his pockets.

Steve laughed and shook his head, then stepped forward, reaching out.

“People keep trying to hurt me and mine, and I am getting — ” Tony rolled two chemicals together, sliding down the corridor. “Scarping — ” He twisted a blasting cap from his apron into them. “ _Tired_ of it.” He threw the tiny bomb in Steve’s face. Steve batted it away, but it blew up in his hand, and Steve grunted, nearly getting tangled in electric wiring, then trying to come out again, cradling his blackened glove and injured hand.

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

Tony stared at that earnest face and open body language, and slowly said, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing.”

“I’m trying to take you home.”

“Interesting fact: I don’t want to go home.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Tony, what do you think is happening? You’re in trouble. I’ll take care of you.”

Tony wondered if Steve thought he was insane; he was speaking with the kind of careful voice used on people about to jump off a cathedral tower and take a hostage with them. “Don’t tell me not to be ridiculous, I’ll be ridiculous if I want to.” Steve flinched. “And take care of me?” That was probably a metaphor for arresting him. “Take care of me? Lock me away from everything interesting, drag me home after you destroyed _Jormungandr_ , and I just got her … ” Beautiful _Jormungandr_ , with her foilsails and her broken hydrogen envelope, who had spoken her first words yesterday. “Never mind, you don’t care, and I wouldn’t trust you enough to tell you if you did.”

“It’s okay, Tony,” Steve continued, almost completely ignoring everything Tony had just said. “I know you’re scared.” He edged forward. Tony backed up the ladder. “I don’t know everything that’s going on, but I know it’s not as bad as you think it is. If you’ll just come up with me, I promise … ”

“Do you know what happens if you put that foot down?” Tony demanded, grinning, and Steve froze.

“Yes,” said Steve without looking, and Tony blinked in surprise. “Either something descriptively violent or deadly; or I’ll break something you care a lot about, in which case you will be descriptively violent on my remains.” Steve carefully shifted and put his foot down on a plastic floor panel instead.

“Okay, maybe you do know me. Do you maybe want to give a guess at your chances of forcing me out of an engine room, one I’ve had weeks to modify, if I want to stay on board?”

“Well, Tony,” Steve said with a smirk, “I’d say it’s about the same as my chances of recovering from a sniper attack when you’re dragging me to the courthouse. Tony? Tony!”

~

Amora saw them emerge from below deck. Commodore Steve Rogers was carrying Tony, who didn’t seem to be struggling. She had a sword in one hand and sea-green magic fire in the other, but Natasha and Hela were taking turns bottlenecking SHIELD at the railing and Layla was only as good as her ability to stay unseen in a fight (which was still pretty impressive).

“ _Jormungandr_ , which rope do I want?” she muttered hopefully to a mast, and didn’t second guess it when one quivered. She slipped it free of its mooring and grabbed hold as it slithered upward, taking the boost to jump across the deck and land on the Commodore’s head with a whooping battlecry. Tony half-crawled a few steps away and fell flat, eyes glowing. Amora punched the commodore with her fiery hand and rolled away just as his shield came down where she had been.

“Hey, Cap!” Layla shouted at Steve from the fore deck, and attempted to drop a counterweight on him. The commodore looked up at Layla and dodged, but put himself in reach of Natasha. Amora shot small fireballs after him, forcing him to watch both of them, then sent harrying shots over the rail.

Captain Loki was on the poop deck. He dodged his brother’s hammer, but the aft wheel took the blow, several slats crunching.

“ _Jormungandr_? I need to be there now.” Judicious use of _Jormungandr_ ’s ropes sent her flying, trailing fire behind her and nearly impaling herself and the captain on her sword, but it put her between Loki and Thor, distracting them from what had looked like a truly emotional moment. Incandescent rage was an emotion. “Hi, ex-fiancé!” Amora said brightly. “Let’s dance.” She swung with all her might.

~

A quarter of an hour later, there were a baker’s dozen of SHIELD agents in the drink. The mages amused themselves dropping tiny elemental bombs on them when they tried to climb on the dock too close to the ship. Meanwhile, Layla and Natasha stoked the boiler. The port authorities might decide to come look into the mess after all. _Jormungandr_ limped out of False Bay, turning north to lay a false trail.

Tony rolled over. He felt like he might heave for a few minutes and waited until his stomach settled. Loki jumped lightly down by him. “Are you all right, Mr. Stark?”

“Thought we were doing first names now, Panacea” Tony whispered, leaning against the ladder to the fore deck. “That was a little bit worse blueout than came before. What caused it?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

“We won!” Amora shouted. She roared at the city falling away behind them and shot off a firework from one finger.

“Sounds like it all went swimmingly,” Tony laughed.

“Literally, on their parts. The ship is surprisingly skilled at defending herself.” Loki hesitated. “Tony, do you need help standing?”

“Yeah, well, we keep getting tangled up with pirates and slavers and navies. I thought she could use a few tricks of her own.”

“Tony,” said Hela.

“Yeah, Particolor?”

“I want more tricks, too. Can you put my cannon in my arm?”

Tony heaved himself to his feet and clipped back into his rope system. “Next time.”

~

Everyone _but_ the port authorities had heard of the battle at the docks. Pepper sent people out to let Commodore Rogers know she wished to speak with him, and Captain Danvers know that if she dared sail without an explanation, Pepper and Stark International would make career advancement an impossibility.

Pepper was not prepared for them to bring royalty.

She moved the meeting to the blue salon and ordered an extensive tea. She also moved to impress upon them that she was a powerful woman in her own right and would not tolerate condescension. Some of them required that lesson more than others.

“I’m confused. Is your son a traitor or not?”

“He has been convicted of treason because he was not allowed to speak in his own defense. Now it is my task to undo the damage my husband caused, and now Loki will not even speak to me,” said Frigga. “My last message was by an extremely unreliable messenger.” Pepper patted her hand with businesslike sympathy.

“My brother met us with weapons unsheathed and magic in dangerous forms,” rumbled Thor.

Pepper and Frigga both arched extremely communicative eyebrows. Thor, Steve, and Carol slouched back down in their seats.

“I’ll make sure Clint won’t do that again,” muttered Carol.

“ _I_ have spoken with Clint, and I will do so again,” said Frigga. “He is the archer who began the hostilities,” she informed Pepper. “I will pass on any communication you wish, Miss Potts. Believe me, I do not intend to entrust any important missives to another person again.”

“My concern is Tony, Queen Frigga.”

“He seemed in good spirits,” said Steve.

“He seemed sick,” said Pepper. “He fell down the minute I laid eyes on him. And there was something about his eyes. They were glowing blue.”

“A bright glow, and a pale blue?” asked Frigga intently.

“Yes, but it flickered,” said Pepper, thinking it over, examining her memories. “Glowing, then normal.”

“He was tied up again,” volunteered Steve, “but not as if he was a prisoner. It was almost as if he needed the ropes in order to stand.”

Pepper set her teacup down with a firm clink. “He needs help, but he’s clearly been working. There were signs of proprietary technology on that foilship.”

“That is the most important information you’ve given me so far, Miss Potts,” said Frigga. “This sounds like mind magic most subtle, of an order I had not thought my son to be capable.”

“So when Clint dropped an explosive arrow right next to Tony, hoping Tony could use its parts to get free … ”

Pepper facepalmed. “Steve …  Frigga, please let Clint know I am not happy right now.”

“Certainly, Miss Potts. We have months on a ship ahead of us, even if our mission is successful tomorrow. He will understand.” Frigga smiled and selected another biscuit. Steve and Carol shivered in sympathy for Clint. Thor ducked his head and tried to appear unobtrusive.

After tea, Pepper showed them to the door out of respect for Frigga. When she got back to her office, she shrieked.

Tony laughed. “Hey, Pep.”

“Tony, they just left, I need to go call them back.”

“No, no, Pep, you can’t do that, do you know what they did to _Jormungandr_?”

“Do you know how many people are looking for you? The entire world’s in an uproar, and don’t tell me you like it, I know perfectly well you’re thrilled, but I am not.”

“She’s an utter disaster. She can’t talk. They practically murdered her.”

“What does the ship have to do with anything, Tony, we need you here.”

“Yeah, I’m kind of avoiding the world right now, don’t know if I mentioned that a few times already.”

“Oh, Tony, that’s horrible, of course you have to do what you need, just, a talking ship, Tony, what possessed you? You’ve only known them for a month.”

“The ship is a thing of beauty who’s had far too much bad luck and I promised her she could fly.”

“Whatever you need, I just need you to stick around for long enough to sign some papers.”

The other man in the room cleared his throat, and they both turned to look at Loki.

“Oh. Hello, Captain.”

“I promised him she could fly, too,” put in Tony.

“It’s unnecessary,” said Loki. “We are currently moored across the bay to avoid the _Avenger_. It was rather a long walk, and I have a lot of business to conduct. The rest of my crew has, unfortunately, given themselves the day off to celebrate. I was forced to see Mr. Stark to his appointment myself. I do apologize for our lateness. The open warfare clause was regrettably invoked.”

Pepper fluttered and assured Loki that she understood, then shoved a large folder at Tony. After his memory blipped once, he gave up and signed everything without reading. Pepper was not surprised.

Pepper did glare at Loki quite a lot while negotiating the sale of artificially manufactured enamel, quartz amplitude communicators, and Cape Town bacon bubble alcohol for Jormungandr to trade further east. Loki squirmed at the price he eventually paid out of guilt, looking quite chagrined to be respecting Tony’s stated wishes by letting him stay with the ship.

“How much is the price on my head anyhow?” asked Tony.

“Probably more than I’ve seen in my life,” said Loki.

“You’re a prince,” said Pepper. “I doubt that.”

“You’re a prince?” asked Tony.

“Not any more,” said Loki, scowling. “Sign your paperwork.”

When Tony handed the folder back, Pepper held it for a long moment, then sighed. “Tony, I’m not going to stop worrying about you, but for now, I need to write a letter.”

They set sail with the tide. Pepper declared the reward Stark International was offering for locating its Stark fulfilled and hoped word would spread quickly enough to keep from inconveniencing the crew of _Jormungandr_.

~

Rocking in his hammock at night, drowsy and safe, Tony explored the edges of his amnesia. He rarely got far before losing track of his thoughts, but he thought he was making progress in solving the puzzle.


	5. In which Layla reverse-pickpockets Ororo, water rights are resolvable, pride is a good thing and anger is a thing, and it’s a mistake to leave the power multipliers behind when you’re outnumbered.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Water, water, everywhere, and all the boards did shrink; water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.  
> -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation notes:  
> Tuulada —  town, here used as a proper noun for a fictional place;  
> Wazir —  minister, in this case a tax collector and water official;  
> Naib —  mayor/local leader;  
> Qadi —  judge;  
> Amiirad —  princess, because Princess Zanda had no surname I could find, so I went the same route as for Enchantress Amora Incantare;  
> Ayeeyo —  grandmother;  
> Ajuuraan Sultanate —  empire in modern-day Somalia from the 1200s to the late 1600s, moved forward for this AU.

“Yes, I hear you squeaking and squawking and calling and crying up there, but if I don’t get an extra hand down here _now_ , we’re going to lose the fan belt, and if we lose the fan belt, we’re less than half an hour from needing to replace the entire engine!”

“If we spare a hand now, we’re less than fifteen minutes from needing to replace the boat and crew, and that means you’re dead, Stark!” yelled Hela from the well deck.

Tony punched a stuck wrench for frustration and leverage. They were under attack by the submersible punkship _Hydra_. Tony wasn’t certain what _Hydra_ ’s goals were, but he was pretty sure it was related to the fact that a lot of the crew knew him from the time before his memories began, and now was _not_ the time to go into a fugue state, so even if he had thought to spare from thaumic coil repair to _Hydra_ motivations, he couldn’t afford to try.

“If I have to rebuild the arc reactor because you can’t fight off a couple of measly pirates, I’ll set all the steering controls to reverse at random intervals!” Tony shouted up the ladder. “ _Jormungandr_ , is Albatross ready to flap our wings?” Then the fan belt snapped.

“Destruction and creation,” Tony swore and wrenched the crystal matrix into place, shoving three quarters of a thaumic coil into the arc connection. The engine room began to overheat. He rigged the fan belt with rope and pumped it into the electrolyzer, wishing he’d waited a day to reconfigure the electric coil.

Five minutes later, Loki plugged himself into the battery array, and then _Jormungandr_ almost skimmed across the surface of the water at quadruple her previous speed. The _Hydra_ vanished behind them. Layla clattered down to hit or move whatever Tony pointed out to her. Natasha was at the wheel and Amora and Hela on the poop deck to make their Parthian shots, so no one was on the well deck when the boiler blew.

~

A boiler destroying itself that catastrophically should not have been possible without an experimental magic-electric convertor having too much power shoved into it after being bombarded by cannon. The copper pipes had exploded, taking out the casing, the heater, half the crystals, and the entire convertor. Hela had been struck in the side by a flying shard of pipe, and her prosthetic leg had taken a bullet, but they were otherwise uninjured.

Without a boiler, the steam wheels couldn’t turn. They were stuck with the solar foils adjusted for wind power. Worse still, without a boiler, they couldn’t turn salt water into fresh. They had no water reserves. They hadn’t appreciated the need for them until they lost the ability to make more. Amora wilted within the hour, not aided by Natasha’s occasional needling.

It thus became of literally vital importance to not waste a day seeking port. They weighed anchor at the first promising settlement along the Horn of Africa and took the longboat in. Despite Tony’s assurance that he could beach a ship and return her to sea in better condition than ever, even he found the idea of a ship out of water offensive.

Tony was disgusted that the longboat still ran on human power, and interrupted his boiler brainstorming to wax vociferously against oars. Hela took first watch, staying on _Jormungandr_ , grateful to avoid Tony’s mouth at full sail. Loki set up the schedule of who would return to the ship every quarter day so everyone got shore leave, before he loosened the pulleys, magically lowered the longboat to the waves, and threatened Tony with a gag.

Tuulada was a village of a thousand. The Somalis who lived there pointed out the aqueduct, a high arched waterway, and explained how to purchase water from the local water wazir of the Ajuuraan Sultanate. Loki had pieces of paper with a signature Tony couldn’t read; they were useless this far from an international banking system. They pooled their gold and silver coins, but could not buy enough water to get them across the Arabian Sea to Mumbai. Would they have to turn back to Mogadishu?

Tuulada’s grey stone was invisible against the sand. It could hardly be called a beach; the sand ran unbroken from the ocean over a mile inland to ancient, cracked mud. When the wind stirred, the sand skittered over the road.

A small group assembled between the sea and the village as the crew rowed in. When they beached their boat between Tuulada’s fishing boats, a white-haired child peeled off and ran shrieking the news up and down the main street. Loki covered his mouth to hide a smile. As more people joined the welcoming committee, Loki focused on the three most obvious leaders, preparing to charm them into the bargain of a lifetime.

~

Ororo watched the strangers from behind the square pillar of an arch. They laughed and seemed at ease as they introduced themselves. Traders or troops came a few times a year, but always from nearby, and always by land. It was better watching pale-skinned foreigners than sitting at her Ayeeyo’s feet listening to stories at night. They spoke to the town leaders as if it didn’t occur to them that they might not be equals.

The one with an M inked around her eye and blonde hair in tails on the sides of her head had a beaded pouch swinging from her belt. Layla Miller seemed entirely engrossed in the conversation with the wazir, the naib, and the qadi. Ororo moved closer, squeezing through the crowd of her extended family, who were dressed in their brightest cotton robes, and watched and listened.

Wazir Ngala folded his arms across his massive chest. “The people cannot pay taxes if they have no money. The army sought to motivate them by making it harder to live without destroying the fishing fleet. There is a well some kilometers away. We used to be able to pump water. The Sultan ordered it destroyed. Now all water comes from the royal aqueduct. I am responsible for rationing the water.”

“Ooo!” said Tony-the-Engineer. “I can twin some systems and build two boilers almost as quickly as one. One boiler should water a hundred people straight from the sea if you can power it. If you’ve got the materials, I can build a lot of boilers. I can build a boiler factory. You can export boilers to other towns.”

“Why not offer to fix the pump while you’re at it?” asked Layla. Loki and Natasha glared at her without changing their expressions a hair. Amora’s poker face was not so successful.

Khairi Ngala shrugged at her in acceptance. A wazir had to be diplomatic because they were the strongest link between a town and the Sultan. “Regular Ajuuraan patrols make it difficult to keep it fixed if the town has another bad year. You have your goals; I have mine.”

“And those goals of ours necessitate sailing long before a factory could be constructed to any fortune, Mr. Stark,” drawled Loki. Tony already seemed engrossed in drawing schematics in the sand at their feet. The rest of the crew left him to it; they needed only sporadic input from the engineer before the bargaining was done.

“We can take your letter-of-rights, but unless someone travels to the capital, the most it will do for us is one year of taxes. The Sultan will not agree to refund the excess.”

“The Sultan _should_ agree to refund the excess,” snapped Zanda Amiirad, the naib. “You should tell him that.” The wazir placidly shook his head at her. “But it is true,” she added to the captain, “that your paper does not have the face value for _us_ , so we cannot give the face value to _you_.”

Ororo moved through the audience, sidling around behind, to where there was less competition to be close enough to see their faces. She paid scant attention to the initial stages of the bargain between the administrators and the foreigners.

“ …  we need copper and silver … ”

“The only metals to be had are in the possession of individuals. You would not have us give up our jewelry for less than gold, would you?”

“We don’t carry heavy currency on a small ship … ”

“ …  sand for glass? Take all the sand you want!”

“Glass is useless shipboard.”

“I wonder if plastic silicates might be possible if reinforced with a tendon medium … ”

Ororo could almost touch the beaded pouch. She looked up at the adults. No one was watching. No one was closer to the woman with the tattoo than her. She stood and tried to look politely interested.

It was tied loosely onto the woman’s belt, and it sparkled, oh, so temptingly. Ororo’s hand reached out without conscious volition, lifting it slowly, feeling the weight, seeing the silk cords lose tension and unravel.

“Ororo Munroe, what in the name of eight planets, eleven dwarfs, and two hundred minors do you think you’re doing?” screeched Qadi N’Dingi.

Ororo stammered something about just looking.

Layla turned, her hand darting out to grab Ororo’s shoulder, but Ororo didn’t dare move with nine tenths of her town standing around, staring straight at her, knowing she had just violated all laws of hospitality.

“Your people admire art too much,” said Loki, not bothering to hide his smirk.

“She’s a child,” said the qadi quickly, glaring at Ororo.

“Given that she was about to deprive us of all our gold, which is the only currency you said you would accept, you understand that I must consider this equivalent to an attack on our lives.”

“I didn’t mean it,” muttered Ororo desperately.

“ _Enough_ , Miss Munroe! Captain, I’m sure we can come to a solution agreeable to us both. It’s late. The children will show you to the well if you will help them carry water.”

Ororo found herself trudging under the royal aqueduct with half a dozen of her cousins, carrying large waterskins on shoulder harnesses. They followed that shiny purse beyond the reach of the salt water.

A herd of gerenuk loped away when they reached the dot of greenery on the mud flats. Old predator pawprints cautiously approached and left again. They filled the skins and their stomachs with as much water as they could carry. It was less than an hour round trip, and the skins were lighter when they got back to town.

~

Instead of returning to the ship to sleep the first night, they whimsically made a camp on the sand by the concrete road which ran through the middle of town. Tony and Loki rowed back to _Jormungandr_ to bring supplies in, and Hela and Loki returned to shore, leaving Tony, with most of his tools, to keep watch on _Jormungandr_.

They rigged hammocks on poles around a fire lit with fuel from the ship —  there was no wood to be had for several days’ walk.

“The throng’s petite cutpurse was conveniently come,” said Loki, watching Layla narrowly.

“So, about Tony,” said Layla far too brightly, poking at the multi-hued fire with a metal prod, as if that would encourage it to burn higher.

Amora grumbled under her breath and sank further into her hammock.

“Do we have any plans for releasing him back into the wild?”

“Can’t we keep him?” whined Amora. “I don’t want to go back to the days of needing three engineers at six ports just to hammer a patch in place.”

“I expect that won’t happen,” said Loki.

“Is anything actually left of the original boat now?” asked Natasha, sharpening her knives with a light whisking noise.

“I like to think we would have noticed if he’d replaced the hull under our feet,” said Hela, removing her leg for the night. “Maybe.”

“But he likes us! And I like him. Don’t you like him?”

“He’s very likeable,” said Natasha without inflection.

“I like him all right,” said Hela, “which is why I want to do right by him. Which means putting everything back where it was.”

“Minus a few months at sea, and the disquietude, if not outright consternation, of an international company,” pointed out Loki. “Furthermore, I hope you don’t think we shall ever, while smuggling stuffed happy picolizards, earn enough to repay the specie he signed over to us, much less pay for his time at his usual rates.”

“So we should keep him,” said Amora. “That way we never have to pay it back.”

“The idea has its appeal. The caged, wild engineer, set free on wings of solar foils, to sail the seven seas.”

“Your ethics are disturbing,” said Layla.

“It might be best if we don’t take a powerful industrialist, with a powerful reason to want revenge on us, and set him free, beyond our ability to talk to him,” Natasha pointed out.

“That line of thought would have been better addressed two months ago.”

Natasha arched a pointed eyebrow.

Loki stared into the fire. “We render him civil hospitality until he repairs Jormungandr, or until civility is no longer an option.”

“Do you honestly think the repairs will ever be finished?” asked Natasha.

“Honestly, third mate mine? I’m going to claim the possibility he’ll stay with us permanently hasn’t occurred to me.”

“Nat, it was your idea to begin with,” said Amora. “Stop your devil’s advocate act.”

“I’m not so sure whose idea it was,” said Natasha, looking at Layla, who shrugged, then laughed delightedly when her prodding made the fire flare purple. “Even so, it’s gotten out of control. It was supposed to be one day, and now it’s been over a month and we’re being chased by SHIELD and Hydra alike. Now you’re talking about permanence? I’d like to turn around without a warrant on my head some day.”

“I believe that became an impossibility some years ago, Ms. Romanov. Two more organizations hardly adds to our risk.”

“It adds a great deal of risk considering these organizations keep tracking us down!”

“Would it relieve your concern to know that Miss Potts of Stark International has withdrawn the reward for the return of their genius?” asked Loki.

“It would,” said Natasha slowly. “Do you know that happened?”

“It was one of the conditions of Mr. Stark staying behind, which he did not do, so I cannot be certain. However, since she spoke with him extensively and knows him to be in good physical health, she will be inclined to make _his_ life easier by making _our_ lives easier.”

“So she probably called off the _Avenger_ , too. Your family will have to find other passage. The crew of the _Hydra_ explicitly said they were in it for the reward. If we can make them believe that, they’ll leave us alone.” Natasha nodded sharply. “Yes, I find that much better.”

“It might be politic to take him to any Stark International offices we pass.”

“What if he wants to stay there?” asked Amora.

“We will try to convince him otherwise, but will not hinder him, and hope we can pay his wages at the time.”

“Who’s there?” asked Natasha suddenly, turning. “Come on, into the firelight, let’s see you.”

Ororo shuffled near and proffered the apology basket her Ayeeyo had packed. “Cheese from our camels. It is a local delicacy.”

“Indeed,” said the captain.

Hela elbowed Loki and spoke to Ororo with a twinkle. “Thank you, young lady. We don’t have much to share in return.” She looked around at the others. Ororo stared in awe at the woman with gears in her eye and flowers on her hand.

“Maybe you’d like some bacon bubble brew,” said Amora, poking through the baskets of supplies. “It’s a, um, Cape Town delicacy.” She giggled.

Hela held up her hand warningly. “How old are you, miss? What’s your name.”

She couldn’t believe her luck that none of the others pointed her out as a thief to this strong woman. “I am Ororo and I am twelve. I’ll take it to my grandmother. Ayeeyo likes Cape Town bacon bubble brew when she can get it. She says it’s good for her digestion, but not so good for mine.” Ororo fidgeted and looked somewhat guiltily at Layla. “How can I get an eye like that?”

Amora snorted. Hela glared at her. “First, you have to have your real eye cut out.” Ororo nodded solemnly. “That wasn’t a recommendation.”

“Can’t you make it _better_ than your real eye? And I’d still have the other.”

“The fact that dear Hela lost her eye in the middle of a war might color her perception,” drawled Loki. “I’m sure the weeks of fever and infection and nearly dying from a lack of proper medical care were mere outliers. Painting you a picture of the protracted agony and suppurating pus is unnecessary. You’ll make your own decision on the matter, as do we all.”

Layla gagged. “Oh, ships, Loki.” Loki smirked.

“On that note,” said Hela loudly enough to drown out anything else Loki might add. “Run along, youngling, they’ll only get worse. Good night, Captain. If I have to clean up camp in the morning, I’m overturning everyone’s hammocks.”

~

Tony waved goodbye to the longboat, then patted the dull green and gold (salt spray was hard on a paint job) of _Jormungandr_ ’s foremast on his way to the engine room. “Alone at last, my proud beauty,” he said.

 _Jormungandr_ chuckled indulgently.

“Can I offer you some sparkling flashing indicator lights in lieu of champagne?” Tony asked.

“Certainly, sir,” she replied.

“Okay, my Goosey, Goosey, Gander, let’s get cracking. Where’s something not too flammable? How are the reciprocal morals working out for you?”

“A brief review of human history suggests they are very flammable, sir,” said _Jormungandr_ critically.

“Well, you’ll do better, I’m sure,” said Tony, “and if not, I’ll load you into an ironclad eighteen-steamwheeler with revolving turrets. I’m sure they’d let you be an official crewmember then. Not that I think that’ll be a problem! You just need to fake humanity well enough without all our flaws, and then no one will say you’re not a person.”

Tony slid into the somewhat repetitive motion of wiring, trusting _Jormungandr_ and her plumbing to cut the electricity and douse him in soap if he slipped into a blueout while thinking.

Tony didn’t have much patience for sitting in the captain’s cabin while Loki waved magic tests over him, especially when the result was always apologetically repeating that he didn’t know much about how memory worked. The lack of a past was only slightly worrisome when Tony was having as much fun as he was messing around with sapience in sea transportation. The blueouts were more annoying, especially if they happened right in the middle of a promising line of thought. Fortunately, he was getting better at avoiding such thoughts, and almost none of them were associated with engineering. That was suspicious in itself. Why would an accident affect him so precisely? It spoke to deliberate mnemonic sabotage.

The most likely culprits were SHIELD, Hydra, _Jormungandr_ ’s crew, whoever Pepper worked for, and Tony himself.

That was odd —  he remembered so much about Pepper’s personality, peppered (ha!) with tiny details of life, but he couldn’t recall her business, which Tony had presumably worked for himself. There were many reasons why an international firm might want to discreetly do away with one of their employees. He could have discovered them doing something illegal. He could have done something illegal himself, like embezzling. He hoped he hadn’t embezzled from Pepper. She could have been the woman in charge, if she were running the office at such a central city as Cape Town, but he was positive he liked her.

Thinking about embezzling wasn’t making him go all fuzzy-minded again, so Tony mentally crossed that off the list. Trying to decide if Pepper was in charge did make him glad he was in harness. He reassured _Jormungandr_ almost absently, patting the nearest coil. He told her it was all part of the same Tony Memory Puzzle, and she wasn’t to waste processing power by prioritizing that puzzle when there were so many others that could have more immediate payoff, such as where he had put his coffee, and if a two degree turn would be more effective cognitive calibration.

SHIELD and the Avenger. He didn’t know much about them, but they had been the first to attack him, and they had proven uncomfortably tenacious in west Africa. Thinking about why an intergovernmental organization would want him to lose his memory caused all sorts of shorts.

Hydra and the _Hydra_. Thinking about either the organization or the boat caused Tony no problems; it didn’t turn up any memories, either. Thinking about the individuals too hard left him gasping and swaying and trying to clutch at strands of recollection.

The best line of investigation was to follow the money. _Jormungandr_ was clearly getting the most benefit so far. Tony was brilliant and he didn’t need his memory to realize that. The crew reaffirmed it repeatedly. He didn’t want to believe that they had anything to do with it; he knew what he wanted had nothing to do with it. It didn’t matter how nice they were.

Tony could see him doing it to himself for several reasons. Perhaps he knew something too dangerous. Perhaps it had been a genuine accident, part of an experiment, which was more likely to cause these blueouts than just getting hit in the head. Perhaps it was part of an _ongoing_ experiment, in which case he needed to figure out where the results were being recorded. Unfortunately, details about himself were where he was fuzziest.

~

This was one thing lacking on _Jormungandr_ : Loki could not sit with the full crew paternalistically as on a throne, even if his throne tonight was rope and cloth slung between two poles. He sat, swinging gently, and pondered how he had come to feel so satisfied and proud since leaving Asgard. Proud of his crew, though he did not dare to speak it aloud; proud of what they had done; proud to be doing the right thing; proud to be indirectly opposing his father by smuggling, by stopping slavery.

Proud of Hela: rising star of Asgard who sided with him despite some doubt, including public and legal doubt, regarding the true fault behind her conviction for treason; proud of how she had turned her disabilities into strengths.

Proud of Amora, who had helped Loki escape without even the treason charge to motivate her. Loki ignored minor issues like vengeance on Loki’s brother — oh, wait, proud of that, too. He smirked, remembering the look on Thor’s face as they both tossed him overboard.

Proud of Natasha, who took what she wanted with both hands, and had repeatedly made a new life for herself; Natasha, who had remained loyal through all their adventures. Proud of her skills in war, people, and secrecy.

Scared of Layla, even beyond Natasha, because Layla might not be a mage, but she had plans that were longer-ranging that a human’s plans reliably should be, and Loki’s only hope was that her decisions would be in his favor in the end. But proud because, of all the people she could have chosen for her plans, she chose five sailors. All told, Layla had navigated well for them.

Proud of Tony’s skill, of the advances to _Jormungandr_ , of his quick adaptation to ship life (and adapting ship life to him).

Loki was proud of himself that they all chose him as captain. They chose it every day they decided to continue sailing with him.

My crew. Mine.

My people.

My family.

He relaxed by the fire, trusting Natasha to keep watch, and slumbered easily.

~

“Hey, _Jormungandr_ ,” Amora said, swinging herself on board the next morning. “I’m going to be keeping you company for the next six hours, if you don’t mind.”

“Amora Incantare, Second Mate,” said _Jormungandr_. There was a whir of thinking cogs and springs. “Welcome aboard.”

“Help me carry the forge to the longboat,” said Tony.

“The entire forge? I’m just glad I don’t have to help row it in. I don’t know how you do it, _Jormungandr_ , carrying the forge and all of us and whatever else we’ve got stowed away.”

 _Jormungandr_ hummed and sputtered and said, “Apologies. I can recognize the joke but not respond to it. Mr. Stark, please prioritize repairs to my humor module.”

“Seriously?” Tony blinked at the nearest sensor. Amora roared with laughter and even Natasha cracked a smile. Tony gave them a vaguely confused look and tracked connections between disperse parts of _Jormungandr_ ’s brain.

“No, Tony, prioritize whatever will get us sailing again,” said Amora, still chuckling.

She saw them underway, then hung her hammock in the rigging on deck, so she could laze at about half mast and see both the camp and a wide sea horizon. “So, Jorm,” said Amora. “Can I call you Jorm? Jor? No, too much like ‘your.’ How are you at guessing games?”

“My databases are extensive but require more relationships between entries, Ms. Incantare,” said _Jormungandr_.

Amora patted the nearest bit of rigging more solid than rope. “Let’s see if we can fill in some random connections, then. I spy with my little eye, something that is brown.”

The sun was high in the sky when Amora  saw the dark shadow under the waves, cutting _Jormungandr_ off from escape.

~

The crew of the _Jormungandr_ jerked upright when the long, long longboat hit shore and a delegation of a few dozen disembarked. Making a camp on shore had seemed like a joke when they first set it up, a way to relax off ship for a couple of days. Now they felt their distance from their weapons and defenses. Their own longboat was close, but it would be impossible to launch it it time. The fishing fleet was out, barely visible specks under a glittering sun.

They recognized the captain of the _Hydra_ from Dakar. She pointed at the little camp and smiled.

Guards armed with bayonets surrounded them as the avenue behind them emptied of people who had been sweeping their doorsteps or watering beans in pots.

Captain Ophelia Sarkissian sauntered closer and doffed her plumed tricorn in a mockery of courtesy. “We have what we want, and after so many battles, he fell into our hands so easily!” The guards shouted agreement. Loki’s crew moved closer together, back to back. “Tony, Tony, Tony. I can only imagine how much trouble you’re going to cause today. Give me an excuse. Please, just give me an excuse.”

People who, yesterday, had donned festival gear to meet five foreigners from a small ship, today emerged cautiously to get a look at ten times their number from the dark shadow on the horizon.

“How about we call it more trouble than I’m worth and you all scurry back to your nasty _Hydra_ hole?” suggested Tony.

Captain Sarkissian backhanded him across the mouth. Natasha and Hela exchanged horrified glances, and Hela hauled Tony to his feet, clamping a hand over his mouth and hissing at him to shut up. The captain allowed this with pursed lips. “As satisfying as this may be, you damaged my ship. I think it only fair that you make amends. We’re in it to make money.” She leaned in closer. “And fancy that, there’s a lot of money tied up in you.”

Tony mumbled something negative behind Hela’s hand.

“The power, too,” said Captain Sarkissian of the _Hydra_. “You keep tempting us and taunting us, and following us home, and just when we think we have you, you slip through our fingers. Well, not this time, Tony!”

“SI canceled the reward,” Hela said insistently. “You won’t get your money. He was found and he left again of his own free will …  oh, firefights, really, Tony?” Hela swore when Tony’s eyes briefly flickered blue.

“What is this?” demanded Captain Sarkissian. Loki’s hand started to stray towards his pocket, then quickly raised it higher when a _Hydra_ crewperson dug the blade of her bayonet deeper into his spine.

“A minor medical issue,” said Loki.

“Let’s see. Where can I best apply pressure?” She drew a poniard from her belt, tapping it against her palm while considering the five of them, then pointed at Layla, the youngest of them. “You, my dear. What’s your name?”

Tony shouted and tried to struggle free from Hela. Layla stammered, and Loki stepped slightly forward, holding his hands up. “My Lady, you can be sure my engineer would help with a will if you merely explained the problem.”

Captain Sarkissian moved like a viper, pushing the point of her dagger up under Loki’s chin, stopping him short. “Are you volunteering?”

“Don’t,” whispered Layla.

“The captain of one ship,” said Loki slowly, “has the duty to accept a certain class of unpleasant activity, including parlaying with the captains of other ships. Yes, my Lady, if you forego harming my navigator, I will render you painful aid.”

Qadi N’Dingi rushed up, looking as if he had run from the courthouse. “Good afternoon, foreign troops in Tuulada,” he rattled off, his eyes darting over both parties and looking entirely unsurprised to see someone keeping Tony quiet. He adjusted his turban and dusted off his official robes. “Our naib and the wazir will be here soon. Why are you here?”

Captain Sarkissian looked put out. Unarmed the qadi might be, but there were almost five times as many Tuuladans as Hydra, and as many again in the boats coming in from a day’s fishing. “Him. He belongs to us, and Hydra means to have him.”

Loki decided to stir the hornet’s nest. “My Lady, I doubt he has any more consideration for us than we consider him. He’s just an odd little man we picked up.”

Tony’s inarticulate sounds of protest rose in volume in response to that.

“Qadi,” said the naib, approaching with a smile, “you are preventing them from presenting their visas to me.” She shooed a few guards in front of her until she had broken a hole in their circle. They looked uncertainly at their captain, who glowered silently. Naib Amiirad covered a laugh when she saw Hela and Tony, but placed herself between them and the pirates. “Who are you?”

“Ophelia Sarkissian, captain of the punkship _Hydra_.”

“You’re Hydra? As in the myth of the Great Desert Hydra?”

“Our ship is named after something similar.”

“The Peace must be maintained,” said Naib Zanda Amiirad.

“We have no quarrel with you. Yet. See that you give us the respect we demand, and you will have your Peace.”

Naib Amiirad drew herself to her full height, the gems on her headdress flashing. “You demand respect but give none. Who are you, captain of one ship? I am a princess of the Ajuuraan Sultanate, naib and mayor of the largest town north of Mogadishu. Yes, I know your tricks, captain. It is time for you to stop playing and address me with the reverence due the leader of the land upon which you stand.”

Captain Sarkissian clenched her fists and jaw. “There’s a reward for Tony Stark. I’m here to collect it.”

“Tony Stark, my Lady?” Loki interrupted. “I had no idea.”

“And yet,” Captain Sarkissian said, twirling her poignard. “And yet you have called him both Tony and Stark in front of my crew.” She raised her hand and two guards stepped forward. So did the qadi. A restless susurration went through the Tuuladans. “I think we should continue talking on the _Hydra_.”

Naib Amiirad said, “I have only one objection. We are in the middle of delicate negotiations. You, Madame Captain, are interfering with the wellbeing of my people if you do not allow us to make this sale. You, Captain Loki, would not be so rude as to leave and do all your bargaining with another woman when we have made so much progress already? I’m sure we can come to a solution agreeable to us both. It’s early enough.”

“Of course,” said Loki quickly. “Your pardon, my Lady. Naib Amiirad is before you.”

“We need the engineer for our bargaining, too. He knows the materials, and he provides the expertise. Tony Stark, hmm?” She smiled brightly. “I think those letters of rights just became valuable again. How long do you think it takes to build a factory?”

~

After a protracted discussion in the courthouse, all five set to work, the mages with magic, Tony at his forge, and Layla hauling water for the rest. Hydra guards loitered near the forge while Captain Sarkissian argued with the elders. Tuuladans maintained a regular interest. All it would take would be one thrown stone, and Hydra’s superior weapons would massacre the town. None of them would make it back to their boat alive, but that wouldn’t help anyone.

The _Hydra_ ’s second mate had nominal lead of the guards who were pretending not to be keeping Tony prisoner. She sat on a cracked mold and verbally prodded Tony, fascinated. “Nothing? What about when we … ” Two minutes later, Tony came back to himself because he burned his hand. He had to toss another bar of stock in the scrap pile and stick his hand in the quenching barrel. Yelling and swearing, he told Giuletta Nefaria to shut up, which she did about as well as he would have.

“Do you remember London?” she asked.

“Too sooty. Hotter than here in the summer.”

“When were you in London in the summer?”

Blueout.

“Isn’t there someone I’ve never met before who can harass me?” Tony yelled at the guards, who responded with shouted slogans or not at all. He tried to think of something that wouldn’t blow up in his face too badly.

~

Loki let out a huge sigh and staggered as he let the courthouse bell come to a rest in the sand. A few older women and men sitting in the shade across the road let out a cheer at the thud of the clapper and toasted each other. Loki managed to glare. Bells for water; how far he had come since Asgard. He was not accustomed to using his magic for scutwork. He hoped they would not make him raise the new bell after a shipment of metal arrived from Mogadishu.

Still, lunch had been good, and dinner might be better, supplemented as it would be from the ship’s stores. Loki would not complain about hard work. Too many people would anticipate that for him to give in to expectations.

The _Hydra_ ’s captain stormed out of the courthouse and stopped short at finding a giant bell in her way. Loki leaned against it, not bothering to suppress his smile. “Ophelia, how is your assault and battery going? I think I have a scar on my neck. Are you nostalgic for the jails of Hungary?”

“Loki. I have never been in a jail in Hungary.”

“Ah, my mistake, it’s landlocked, isn’t it? Did they still give you a privateer’s license? I wonder what navy will enforce it.”

“The _Hydra_ sails under a German flag.”

“So far under that I didn’t see it when you tried to board my ship. Are you operating under maritime law, naval law, or open warfare? You should probably know that _Jormungandr_ has the blessing of Miss Potts.” That was almost as true as it was a lie. “Do you want to make an enemy of her?”

Captain Sarkissian’s eye twitched. “Hydra does not care about the opinions of Pepper Potts.”

“What about you, Ophelia? What do you care about?”

“I will complete my ultimate mission, which is not for the ears of such as you.”

“I’m wounded to the quick. I daresay my goodwill is meaningless when the town cannot afford to do more than stall for a few days. You’ve surely captured the messengers who went out yesterday and today —  did you even know about yesterday’s messengers? They will bring back as much metal and munitions as Tony Stark can buy, and report pirate action to the Sultan, who will doubtless come to enquire about further details.”

“How do you control Stark?”

“Ah.” Loki smiled at her. This was where he could dance with words. “That flashy little toy would be quite valuable to you, wouldn’t it? How valuable would you say?”

“It might be worth your life.”

“I am reliably informed that my life is worthless.”

“Then I have nothing to offer you. I will kill you and take it.”

“Do you know how it works? There’s not a person on land or sea who understands it, but I am the one who has studied it most. Do excuse me, Ophelia, the town wants Mr. Stark to have more metal.” He created an illusion of a leash of sparkles just to show off, and headed down the road, pulling the courthouse bell in increments.

Ophelia laid a hand on the pistol at her belt. “You can’t stall forever.”

“I need only stall until the next ship arrives.”

“We’re the first foreign ships in a year, if not a decade. We will catch your messengers.” She raised her voice, calling, “No help is coming.” Then she took off after him, following in the bell’s tracks.

Loki glanced at the aqueduct. Its spouts were locked so only a trickle poured out, filling a barrel that stood in the dry fountain. “But you might help if you chose,” he threw over his shoulder. “It would save you time. The inhabitants of this spare place can keep us employed, and therefore keep us _here_ , indefinitely. You can keep us trapped, but you can’t leave either.” He tilted his head encouragingly. “Do you think we might come to an agreement that would free _both_ our ships?”

Ophelia scowled, but slowly let go of her weapons.

~

Ororo brought another dinner basket to their camp after sunset. Tony continued to work on his boilers as long as there was light to see by, then created more light and continued working.

“Hey. You’re the thief, aren’t you?” Tony said abruptly, and Ororo jumped. He had been on the ship when her ayeeyo had sent her the previous night. Tony was unusually quiet, and he waited until Ororo was meeting his eyes steadily before he flicked a glance at the nearest guards and back, and added, “Don’t get hurt, kid. Go home.”

Ororo bent to place the basket of fish stew and canjeero flatbread by the forge and backed away, but instead of going home, she headed for the camel herds.

~

“Ms. Incantare has already been on board more than her fair share,” mentioned Loki, turning toward the longboat. “We should spell her.”

“Nobody move!” shouted a Hydra guard. They glared at her, and Tony whined about his baby needing him, but they huddled around the fire in the cold night.

The trouble with a small town was that it had relied on sightseers and passersby to guard. There might have been an official peacekeeping force, but no one had remembered to give them instructions. As darkness fell, fewer and fewer people were in the street. The _Hydra_ ’s crew converged on _Jormungandr_ ’s.

“Up!” snapped the captain, putting a hand on Loki’s collar and yanking to force him to comply. “Where is this toy of yours?”

Loki coughed, rubbing at his neck. “You might not want to do Tesseract-based mind control too close to town. You definitely don’t want to do it on a submersible punkship. There wouldn’t be a punkship left.”

“What?” Tony snapped. “Mind control, Albatross? Really?”

Loki laughed lightly. “Why do you think you abandoned … well, we can’t talk about it, can we? I’m sure you _remember_ why.”

Tony’s scowl became a more thoughtful frown.

Loki addressed Ophelia Sarkissian, distracting her from looking too closely in the dark. “If we — that is, if you make your way south past the horizon, beyond sight of town, and order your people to turn their backs, not looking on pain of death, you will see what may be seen.”

“Oh, you’re coming with us, Captain Loki, in case I do not like what may be seen.”

~

Ororo carefully bridled a long-legged dromedary, then galloped for the mudflats. When she reached ground more solid than shifting sands, she pounded along southward.

~

“I should have stayed in Cape Town. I should have stayed in Athens. I should have gone overland to Vienna as soon as I knew there was a problem.” The sand of the long beach looked blue in the moonlight. The sky was black; the stars were uncountable; the humans were over fifty in a long line.

“Loki’s not mind controlling anyone, Tony,” said Hela, too quietly to be heard by Hydra.

“How do you know?” Tony snapped, stumbling on the soft sand.

Hela looked uncertain, but Layla said, “I know.” The moonlight made dark shadows play across her face.

“How’s the leg?” asked Tony after a minute.

“I can feel sand in the articulation, but balance is good for now,” said Hela.

“Silicate sand shield when we get out of this.” He glanced at the troop surrounding them. “We’re gonna get out of this.”

“Certainly,” said Natasha. She gave Hela a small smile and a pat on the arm. “Try to take damage on the replaceable parts this time.” Layla grinned at Natasha. Hela and Tony laughed a little hysterically, which made Hydra yell at them. Up ahead, Loki turned to see what was going on, and got shoved in the back for his trouble.

Five kilometers on, they dropped their torches with ugly smiles. “Well, Captain?” said Ophelia Sarkissian as the pirates manhandled the smugglers in place.

“Yes, Captain.” Loki glanced sheepishly at Tony, who was staring at him with narrowed eyes.

They stood in a loose circle, staring at Loki as he slowly reached into an inner pocket of his frock coat and pulled out a round contraption not unlike a pocketwatch on a chain. Like a stage magician, he continued pulling the chain further out until a cube the size of a fist dangled before his nose. “This toy, this treasure, this topsy-turvy Tesseract from the vaults of Asgard, has unquantifiable and mostly unqualifiable power. A few games, however, are known to me.” He flicked a glance around, looking at every Hydra sailor. He cracked the casing of the cube.

It flared to the heavens. Icy blue and solid fire, a fountain of power slammed into the ground, flinging an arc of sand and sailors in front of Loki.

In the commotion, Ophelia tried to shoot Loki. Natasha stepped around him and snapped a foot up into her face, immediately whirling into a backhand which took down one of the few Hydra who had been behind Loki and were still standing. Tony grabbed dropped guns, emptying the charges onto the beach.

Hela took a bullet in her prosthetic hand, and was still able to clench it into a fist and slam it into the shooter’s face. Fewer Hydra were standing than crawling when they noticed a metallic clatter approaching from the mud flats to the west.

~

“You think one wazir could keep an entire town away from the aqueduct on his own?” Ororo laughed. “You think he _would_ enforce this drought if he had a choice? The army visits weekly.”

Loki stiffly bent to scoop up a pocket watch half-buried in the sand and tuck it back into his pocket. “Coming, Mr. Stark?”

Tony looked at the general, who had been anxious to invite him back to the capital, but kept saying things that Tony thought were meant to be compliments, but made Tony’s amnesia act up. Then he looked at Loki, Natasha, Layla, and Hela. He shrugged. “I thought you were calling me Tony, Albatross. I can’t leave now, I haven’t even installed the boiler, and it is a beautiful boiler, thing of beauty, three hundred percent increased efficiency, give me three days and I’ll have an assembly line turning out boilers with five hundred percent increased efficiency. Of course, I’ll need help carrying them to the boat, so no offense, Albatross, you’ll have to get your hands dirty.”

“Don’t worry about it, Tony,” said Hela.

“Thanks, Particolor.” He poked under the canvasses wrapping the supplies on the troop’s camels. “Oh yes, very nice, I can work with this. Three days.”

~

The sea sparkled blue and the beach shone silver. A line of cylinders, red as copper, stood along the high tide line, each topped by an iridescent black solar panel, curved like leaves to catch the sun and spread out to provide shade on the sand. A wheel taller than any person present stood, half covered by waves. Tony sat on the pipe connecting it to the cylinders, tightening screws.

“Ready?” said Tony, splashing back to land. “Ready. In five. Four. Three.”

Natasha wrenched the huge lever. The wheel began to turn. Tuulada cheered as one. Water rushed through, and it was only moments before the people who couldn’t wait for the fresh water to cool were drinking or carrying it home.

Tony stood, soaked through and shoeless, gaping at Natasha. “Well, fine,” he pouted. “I guess you don’t need the extra casing I converted to a bathtub. Once I get it hooked up to the rigging and sensors, it’ll barely spill, but I’ll keep all the hot baths to myself.” Tony laughed as all four of them tried to kiss him.

Zanda won the right to open the pipe to the well. The army knew it was there, but they didn’t know that it was going to be a lot harder to damage a second time.

When the longboat left for the last time, Layla sat in the stern and called, “Hey, kiddo,” and threw the empty beaded pouch at Ororo. “I can get another one at the next port.” Ororo clutched it with shining eyes.

~

Sam and Jess laughed as the rocking ship swung them in the crow’s nest through great arcs in the air, when Jess grabbed Sam’s arm and pointed north. “Is that a comet or something?”

Sam whistled. “Or something. We would have been seeing a comet that bright for days.”

“Yeah.” Jess frowned. “It looks close. Well, it’s obviously days off, but it looks like it’s on earth. I’ll go tell the mate of the watch.” She grabbed the rigging and practically flew down, waving at Bucky, who was acting as night helmsman, and Bruce, who was doing Bruce things at night. Maybe charting sea nightlife.

“Wanda!”

Wanda Maximoff jumped when Jessica Drew suddenly bobbed upside down in front of her, hanging from a rope.

“Did you see it?” Jess demanded.

“See what?”

“Almost directly for’ard.” She dropped down to follow Wanda up the fore deck, then almost ran into her when Wanda slowed and stopped still on the ladder.

“What do you think?” asked Bruce, frantically taking notes in his journal.

“You’re the naturalist,” said Wanda. “You should be the expert here. You tell me.”

Bruce shot her a dry look. “Well. In my expert opinion, it’s not natural. Back to you.”

“What, supernatural?” asked Wanda. “Unnatural? Paranormal? Metaphysical?”

Bucky laughed, and tacked on, “ Spiritual? Immaterial?”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Well, of course it’s material if we can see it. I mean artificial. Human-made. Probably magic. Haven’t you heard of a light like that recently? Something small?” The other three all shook their heads. “So observant. And they give you the watch. Go get the captain, and she can decide if she wants to wake Queen Frigga for this. She’s our magic expert for this voyage.”

Wanda chewed on her bottom lip, staring at the thin pillar of light disappearing towards the stars. It was hundreds of kilometers away, and if it had been redder and briefer, she would have said volcano and made preparations for sea quakes. “I’ll take the blame. Jess, go get the queen, then get the captain, then all hands ready for rough seas.”

Queen Frigga met Jess at the door, saying, “I feel it.” Jess had the notion that one bowed to queens, so she did, and scampered off to the officers’ berth.

When everyone was awake and crowded on the fore deck, they had nothing to do but listen to Captain Danvers attempt to interrogate royalty. Frigga stood at the railing, one hand slightly outstretched, almost motionless. At length, Frigga sighed and said, “It is Asgardian thaumotech.”

“Are there many Asgardians in the area, ma’am?” asked Steve, interrupting Carol, who glared at him.

“There can be none but my brother,” announced Thor in a voice that probably scared the sharks away.

Frigga physically put her hand over Thor’s mouth. “We are a large empire with many ships. It is not so unusual for our ships to sail here, and many of the captains of larger ships can afford a magic trinket or two, but that is all they are: trinkets. Someone or something that can cause this light? I did not know it was possible. It should be treated like a weapon of war and locked in the royal vaults. Commodore Rogers, is that the same color as your colleague’s eyes?”

“It is, ma’am.”

“There is an item which went missing from our vaults two years ago. I will spare you the details; it is very likely to be connected to Prince Loki.”

“Then it’s just as well we’re already heading that way,” said Carol briskly, clapping her hands. “Does anyone know its exact location? No? Jan, Bruce, get to work on that. Do you know if it’s going to affect us?”

“I cannot be certain,” said Frigga.

“Tsunamis travel eight hundred kilometers an hour. Storms are slower. We’ll head away from shore. All hands, as you were, and be ready on the morrow.” There was a murmur of “Aye, ma’am”s and a partial dispersal until only five people were left on deck.

“I did not know my brother’s abilities stretched this far,” rumbled Thor.

“You still do not know,” said Frigga. “I must test this. Thor, be a love and stand further away so I do not harm you.”

“Yes, mother.”

“What _do_ you know of his abilities, Thor?” asked Steve, loitering by the helm. “I saw him fighting with ice, and he’s done something to Tony, and there are things his ship has done that, well, they look like magic, but our ship does things that look like magic too, but it’s actually Tony’s tech, and he’s no magician.”

“I also am no thaumaturge, Commodore Rogers,” said Thor hesitantly, “and I think my mother will not be answering questions for some time to come. If my brother could control a person’s mind, I doubt he would have hesitated before; perhaps it takes a particularly weak will to be susceptible to such.”

“Tony’s anything but weak,” said Steve quickly.

“I meant no insult. It would explain much if he had recently discovered this power, such as how he convinced an enemy to steal for him. But no, the power must have come from the Tesseract, and he did not have that when we captured General Romanov.”

“What is the Tesseract?”

“An ancient item of power. Pray ignore my words! I should not have spoken. And yet, if my brother can use this item, you may face it in battle.”

“And you think he can control _people_ with it? You’re right that if he could have, he would have done so at the battle of Cape Town.” Steve paced back and forth quickly, worrying at possibilities in his mind. “Perhaps it takes time.”

Thor cheered up instantly. “Yes, perhaps you are correct! This would be good, for more would be safe from my brother’s machinations. Tell me, Commodore Rogers, what fighting your comrade was like, so that mayhap I can interpret his condition.”

Steve shook his head with a pinched face. “He  attacked me. Tony was afraid of me. He was afraid I was going to hurt someone else. He was also angry at me for trying to tell him what to do, but that’s fairly normal. He said he didn’t want to come home, and threatened me, and then he fainted. If I could have just gotten Tony off the ship then, we could have helped him!” He slammed a fist on his leg in frustration, then apologized when Frigga shushed him.

“Why don’t we move away if we’re going to talk about things that make us angry, hm?” suggested Bruce, pushing Thor and Steve gently down the ladder. They spread out along the well deck railing, leaning over the side to look at the stars and the fountain of light.

“My brother also becomes irate if he thinks a person is trying to give him orders. It leads to much vexation between himself and my father.”

Bruce tucked his journal away in a pocket. “If I get angry enough, I …  I’m not even a real person. Anger can mess with your head, make it hard to think.”

“Sometimes, anger makes me think more clearly,” said Steve, fiddling with a wood chain he had been carving, “but mostly in a fight. It’s not always what I need to be thinking about.”

“If my brother could but have learned these lessons earlier, my campaign would have gone better,” said Thor, nodding with finality.

“I learned the lesson, but it doesn’t stop me from getting angry,” said Bruce wryly.

Thor frowned. “You are the calmest man of my acquaintance, friend Banner.”

“Believe me, it doesn’t always help.”

~

The next day, Steve Rogers thanked a businesslike courier politely and waved her off. Megan Gwynn saluted and hopped onto the railing, climbing hand over hand back up the rope ladder to the waiting courier whipship floating above the _Avenger_.

“Orders from SHIELD?” asked Carol, trying to read the missives in Steve’s hands upside-down.

“Yes.”

“They trying to make you go in again, Cap?”

“There’s been a new analysis of some German naval action. SHIELD wants us to pick up some ships in these waters … well, those are my orders, but I’m supposed to use the _Avenger_ to do it.” He handed over an official document dripping with ribbons and seals.

Carol perused it, scowling, then took a deep breath and saluted. “At your service, Commodore Rogers.”

“Thank you, Captain Danvers.” He returned the salute. “It might be best to head straight for Mumbai and hope we can head _Jormungandr_ off. If we capture a ship, we’ll have to detour to bring it to the nearest SHIELD-friendly dock, and I don’t want to lose time. We’re already too far behind. Whatever they did to him, Tony’s making _Jormungandr_ faster by the day.”

“Do you have a plan for making Tony come with us, when he’s brainwashed or whatever?”

Steve shrugged helplessly. “Sink the ship.”

~

On Thursday, First Mate Wanda Maximoff found a leak in a water barrel. Unlike _Jormungandr_ , _Avenger_ inspected their entire supply by the book, quickly repaired in Mogadishu, and sailed calmly on across the Arabian Sea with minimal incident or time lost.


	6. In which everyone is angry, Loki cleverly avoids giving Tony actual information, and many leagues pass with sturm und drang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. I decided to split this chapter in ~~two~~ three. I don't know how to write storm scenes (or action at all), and I plotted two in a row here. This is a deliberately disjointed travelogue/series of vignettes, and it refused to make sense because my mind kept trying to tie together things that were not supposed to be tied together.

“Explain,” said Hela, hands on hips, confronting Loki on deck. Her rage seemed to shimmer around her, making her short black hair stand on end; it was a surprise her left hand and leg weren’t also sparking in static anger. Tony, laying on the deck half under the boiler a few meters away, briefly slowed in his work, then settled in to listen, chatter a little quieter with _Jormungandr_ , and calibrate the sensitive ton of metal over his head.

The little green and gold foilship’s steamwheels churned the gentle waves as they left Tuulada behind. Amora and Natasha constantly adjusted the great black solar foils, iridescent in the morning light, as they moved to their new heading. Clambering up on the masts, they were out of earshot for a discussion, but not for one of Hela’s arguments.

Loki smirked at Hela, spreading his hands. “Had you any plans for otherwise living through the night? I had thought to hire someone to lend us room in their home, but from Hydra’s reputation, that would merely have given them hostages in an isolated space. I removed the hostages and gave Captain Sarkissian exactly what she asked for. Can I be faulted that she knew not what she spoke?”

“I’m blame well faulting you that _we_ knew not what _you_ spoke. You know Tony’s been panicking about this whole amnesia thing — sorry, Tony — ” Tony mumbled something noncommittal around the spirograph he was holding in his mouth, because he might not be a panicker, but he wasn’t going to disagree with Hela in full charge. He would wait for half charge before waving a red cape in front of her. “And you had to go and play a trick that must be preying on his worst fears.”

“It had to be aught Hydra wanted. If you could call an effective lure to mind, you should have presented it earlier, instead of waiting for my ruse and then waxing wroth when the danger had passed. But please, continue. Shouting tells me I had an effect.” Loki beamed at her.

So Hela let him know how much of an effect he had. In crescendo. Loki rolled his eyes and withstood the barrage while Layla and Amora giggled. Natasha was probably smiling internally; you never knew.

“Save some yelling for the rest of us, Alecto,” called Tony. “I’m not that mad because I wasn’t that fooled, but at some point we just have to let the guy do his thing again.” Hela turned on Tony, but then seemed to realize how ridiculous it would be to go from supposedly defending Tony to yelling at him instead, so she huffed and stared moodily at the mast for some minutes before heading below.

“You’d better do something about that, Captain,” said Natasha. “If everyone’s mad at everyone, this crew won’t last long.”

“I delegate that to you,” Loki said offhandedly.

Natasha turned from the helm to give him a flat glare.

“Merely funning!” Loki said quickly. “You’d almost fancy I’m the lowest rank on the ship, the way the mess of you run me ragged. All right under there, Mr. Stark? No demands for another ton of copper?”

“Not until it’s time to plate the hull,” said Tony, spitting out some bolts he was holding in his mouth. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, _Jormungandr_?”

“That is how you programmed me, sir,” said _Jormungandr_ , “but you could choose to change my mind.”

“Did you just make a joke?” Tony grinned. “Good girl!”

“Armor plating on a foilship?” Loki ran a hand along _Jormungandr_ ’s rail, frowning thoughtfully.

“It’ll be like ballast once I have the hydrogen envelope fixed up.”

“I find you insufficiently concerned for your well being, Tony.”

“Yeah, well,” Tony said, and quickly realized that he needed to go below to check on the crystal matrix.

~

_Jormungandr_ quickly circled the Arabian Sea, stopping wherever there were enough other ships to pass unnoticed. They considered painting over her green and gold; Natasha made a push for sea camouflage; however, in the end, it was a better use of time to make her more able to escape than more able to hide. More than once over the months of their voyage, they dropped enough ice to clog their pursuers’ engines, and dashed away faster than any ship on the seven seas.

They made a profit twice in Oman, then port-hopped their way along the Indian coastline from the fortified walls and towering colleges of Karachi, to the thousands of well-repaired canals and reservoirs of Ceylon.

Between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, the _Hydra_ caught up to them again. There was a brief pitched battle, after which the submersible harassed them through the archipelagos until a lucky hit forced the _Hydra_ to repair in Sumatra.

“What do they think they can get?” groused Natasha. She was very unhappy that the _Hydra_ had not been diverted even when news of the revocation of the reward got around, and this lack of happiness tended to express itself in fancy knife tricks near her crewmates’ vitals. Once was too often for Tony’s taste.

“Don’t look at me, Domitian” said Tony, attempting to steal coffee from the galley. Coffee was not rationed, but it always tasted better if Amora hadn’t been near it. He sniffed the magnetized pot and decided it wasn’t too old to stomach, so he liberated the entire kettle to take back to the engine. Natasha caught him and made him make a new pot for the next person.

“I am looking at you, not _for_ the answer, but _as_ the answer.”

“Answer to your dreams.” Tony grinned.

“Your own dreams, perhaps.” She pointed one of the knives she was holding at him. There were eight knives, one between each pair of fingers. “If I dump you overboard, will they leave the rest of us alone?”

“I am not responsible for the insanity that is multi-national privateers who have been stuck in an underwater cigar too long. Their brains are all soggy and they think they can make me into a mind slave.” Tony paused and took a very long drink of coffee, avoiding meeting Natasha’s gaze.

Layla pulled up the sounding line. “Deep waters here.”

“We’ve got a shallower draft than _Hydra_. Shouldn’t we take advantage of that by sticking to the shallows?”

“Captain says it’s better to take advantage of speed and stop island hopping.” Natasha still looked disgruntled over the lack of camouflage; Tony suspected disgruntled would remain her default state until the _Hydra_ was at the bottom of the ocean. With that in mind, he headed down the ladder, but passed the engine room to the depths of the hold, drinking directly from the coffee pot.

~

Stuffed in the galley, watching Natasha fry up some sorghum and goblin shark, they traded tales. “I’m not going to tell you,” laughed Amora.

“I bet you don’t even know,” teased Tony.

She wrinkled her nose at him. “You don’t forget something like a first kiss. It was horrible, and I don’t want to remember and I’m not going to tell.”

“It wasn’t Thor, was it?” asked Loki suddenly.

“No, and it wasn’t you, either.”

“I know _that_ ; you were far too practised.”

“Did you grow up together?” asked Tony, shamelessly prying. “Royal palace or something? Pepper said you’re a prince.”

“Not precisely.” Loki scowled.

“I was born on a little island in the Bering Strait,” interrupted Natasha. “I do not remember my parents. Orphans in Russia, these days, find ways to be useful, or they do not last a winter. I was very useful. _Poshlaya svinya_ .” Tony’s mind translated that as _vulgar swine_ without trying to remember or even thinking about it. He pointed at his own chest, and mouthed _me_? but Natasha shook her head without looking around from the stove. “Mongolian high command. Of whom I was one, later. I said I was useful. I was never useful to other orphans, not even when I had power.” She glanced at Tony. “Sometimes it is better to not remember.”

“Got it,” said Tony, and stopped prying at Loki.

“Your turn, Layla,” Natasha finished, looking blandly at the navigator, who was sitting with a map in her hands, but looked far more interested in the drama playing out beside her.

“I don’t know,” said Layla, smiling and unconcerned.

“I don’t believe you,” said Natasha. Layla shrugged apologetically.

“Ms. Miller, for years you have demonstrated an awareness of the larger world that has recently grown to frightening proportions,” said Loki testily. “Stop trying our patience and give us some information in time to make a decision about it in conditions of relative calm.”

Layla groaned. “Please, Captain, you thrive on chaos. If I told you now, you’d just feel compelled to mess it up even worse.”

Natasha suddenly folded her arms and stepped back. “Conceded. Tell me alone. Maybe Hela can also hear the future without causing trouble.”

“Hey!” snapped Amora. “Miss Posh Liar Whatever, you think you’re what, wiser than me? You can handle it and I can’t?”

Layla shrugged. “Well, I know who you’ll seduce in Perth, but do you really want me to ruin the surprise?”

“Do you,” Tony began, turning a processor over and over in his hands. “Do you by any chance know … ”

“How you lost your memory?” Layla patted Tony’s arm sympathetically. “Sorry, Cheng.”

“Yeah, Butterfly, didn’t think so.” He dropped his eyes to his fingers. Over and over and under and underhanded …  Tony gave his head a quick shake before he could think too far in that direction. Layla hadn’t actually answered the question. He was noticing more moments like that. They did it to each other, too.

“Anyway!” said Layla brightly. “Captain, your turn to tell a story.”

Loki was silent, watching Tony until Tony glanced up. They stared at each other for a heartbeat before Tony’s face broke into a nervous grin. Loki smiled faintly in return. “Once upon a time, there was a man who had everything the world cared about. Fame, wealth, intelligence, good looks. And he had a friend, a very dear friend, who asked him to go to a war zone and make a deal. While this, this prince of the world was at war, he was betrayed and captured. His own people left him for dead. His enemies forced him to serve them. But this man, he had skills beyond anyone’s expectations, and he destroyed his enemies. It is a very bad idea to hold such a powerful man against his will, as the friend who betrayed him learned, to his profound regret. And now the man is free.”

“You?” whispered Tony. “That man was you?”

Amora choked on her ration of rum. Loki seemed to come back to himself, calmly standing, calmly leaving the galley, and calmly, quietly, shutting the door behind him.

Natasha dumped the pan on the board between them. “It is shift change day; everyone is temperamental. Eat and go back to work.”

~

One of Loki’s more pleasant duties these days was imagining potential explosions. Spending time with his chief engineer was alternately amusing in its own right or a gratifying source of vicarious destruction.

“...and if  I double the quartz vibration… ”

Loki leaned back in his chair in his cabin and interrupted. “Yes, Tony, I can see how that would be useful, but wouldn’t a nitroglycerine coating tend towards explosive reactions?”

“Well, maybe, but see, if I … ”

“No, Tony. What’s next?” Loki wasn’t sure if Tony’s persistent tendency for the more dramatic chemical reactions was a memory issue or a lack of self-preservation. He still hid a smile.

Tony dropped rolls of paper as he sorted through them. The schematics alternated extreme detail and sketchy frustration at having to slow down enough to communicate through the written medium. “Metal plating! We can at least force Captain Sarkisian to have to come up alongside us instead of hitting us from behind. She’ll hate that, and then Hela can get a better shot with her cannon, and Natasha will love that, and everyone in the world will be safer because Natasha’s happy again. I had this great titanium-gold alloy that I think might be light enough and strong enough and we can fly with a half inch covering the stern if we ever fly at all, although I’ll have to make it so we can drop it easily, but we also want to recover it easily, so I’ll have to think about that.”

“Titanium and gold are expensive,” said Loki neutrally. Stark’s letters-of-rights would cover any whim he might have, but Loki didn’t care to make a habit of using them. Their current theft was grievous enough without further amplifying it.

“But not explosive. I’m sure I made sure they weren’t explosive, didn’t I, J?”

“In most configurations, neither titanium nor gold are significantly chemically reactive, sir,” confirmed _Jormungandr_ , “although it is necessary to remind you that you created my information set yourself, and thus if you do not know, it is likely that I do not know.”

“No, you’re quite correct, _Jormungandr_ ,” said Loki, rubbing his brow. “Have you been checking Mr. Stark’s calculations?”

“Yes, Captain Loki. Mr. Stark programmed me to do so after the incident with the noodles.”

“Ah, yes,” muttered Loki, “the noodles. The ship is more appropriate than the human —  I think I need to exchange for another berth.”

“This is perfectly appropriate,” Tony protested. “This is absolutely appropriate. There is nothing more appropriate than armoring your talking ship when you’re being chased by pirates, except maybe arming her, which is — oops, where’d it go — this chart here.” He fumbled yet another sheet onto Loki’s desk.

“I am particularly interested in the circulating turrets,” interjected _Jormungandr_. “I had to remind Mr. Stark that rotating turrets would probably destroy the masts.”

“I thought we weren’t going to mention that. However, bonus: if you ever decide to be a pirate yourself, what does J do?” Tony grinned, spreading his arms like a showman.

“My moral weighting algorithm grants an increased cost to offensive measures in the event that I or my crew are the aggressors,” recited _Jormungandr_.

“Still working on reducing that weight for preemptive strikes,” said Tony, looking briefly disgruntled. “Still.” He clapped his hands together. “Progress!”

“ _Jormungandr_ will override the captain’s commands?” Loki asked slowly.

“Only if you want to become a pirate or, say, throw nets from the sky and enslave people, or something. That’s fair.”

“Can we dismiss her in turn?”

“If she becomes too self-aware, bribe her with fairy cake.” Tony patted the nearest wall proudly. “She weights fairy cake highly.”

Loki stared incredulously. “I ask you in full knowledge of the sort of reasoning you tend to use. What does a ship want with fairy cake?”

“I like to see it thrown into the combustion engine,” _Jormungandr_ said, sounding shy.

“Her chemical analysis works a lot like smell. I think. I’m not too sure how smell works, actually. But she likes some chemicals better than others. Basically, sugar is sweet and so is naphtha.”

“Please do not be concerned about explosions,” _Jormungandr_ hastened to assure Loki. “I weight moderation highly, too.”

“Yes, of course,” Loki said faintly. “Mr. Stark, I do have accounts to tally. If you have enough safe projects to keep you occupied, I believe that is all for today.” Tony tried to smooth the piles of schematics against his chest, then clipped them together with a clothespin and left, still keeping up both sides of a conversation as he walked. Loki absently frowned at the closed door for some time after that, not picking up his pen. “ _Jormungandr_?” said Loki, a green light beginning to gather over his fingertips.

“Yes, Captain?”

“I need to see what happens when I use mind magic on you.”

~

One Sunday, Hela declared mutiny.

All five of them shoved an expostulating Loki out of his cabin to take a turn at the night watch; they strung their hammocks up, ransacking his rum, singing old sea chanties, and looking for something good to read.

The next day, they abandoned the captain’s cabin and laughingly proclaimed Loki the only one fit to do the paperwork. Since paperwork included the captain’s log, Loki had to become captain again. It was the only fitting punishment for crimes unspoken.

Amora tried to call it a reverse-mutiny, but Hela insisted she had never been declared captain, so Loki hadn’t had anyone to mutiny against. They spent most of the day cheerfully debating legality under maritime law.

~

“Hey, Tony, what’s your earliest memory?”

“Oh, ships, you’ve got to be careful asking me stuff like that, Butterfly. What if I’d been holding something dangerous?”

Layla and Tony looked down at Tony’s sandwich.

“Then I would have seen it when I looked in the door, and asked something else.”

“Athens. I remember leaving Athens. It was a mess.”

“Nothing about all this engineering stuff?”

“I haven’t exploded anything irreparably yet, have I?”

“If you have no faith, have a little trust.”

Tony gave Layla a sharp look, but began expounding on psyche-dental cogwheels in a way that might have been related if you looked at it sideways.

“You have something you want to ask.”

Tony gasped. “Butterfly, Moonsparrow, Picolizard! I’d say you wrong me, but you are so, so right. So.” He fumbled with his sandwich. “So. Do you know how to tell when you’re being mind controlled?”

Layla glanced up the ladder, then squeezed the rest of the way into the engine room, picking up a flat copper doorix circuit with incomplete etching and proceeding to guide it under the fire etcher by Tony on the floor. “Sometimes you can’t.” Layla kept her head bowed over the delicate work, refusing to look at Tony. Tony shifted and opened his mouth to interrupt, but Layla lowered her voice so he had to lean closer to hear over the ocean and the etcher. “That would be when you can’t question it at all.”

“So there’s a way, and you know that way. And maybe you already know the answer I’ll find.” Tony narrowed his eyes. “And you don’t like that answer, or you wouldn’t be talking to me now.”

“Sometimes you just know. Knowing you’re being controlled is part of the control. That can be good, because then you have a leg up on fighting to regain your own control.”

“Yeah, but that’s nothing like what’s going on here. I know I don’t know. I can … ” Tony huffed, then forced the rest out. “I can question, I just can’t remember.”

“The simplest way is to try to do something opposite the control. If you can’t even think of a test, that’s a bad sign. There’s not much space between not thinking of a test, not thinking of the _possibility_ of a test, and not thinking about mind control at all. Are you in that space?”

“No, no, I’ve got some ideas already,” said Tony absent-mindedly. The sandwich lay forgotten under a coil dripping engine lubricant. “Just gathering information here in case there’s something I missed. I miss a lot, these days. Can I trust you, Picolizard?”

Layla grimaced at the nickname and shrugged at the question. “Just remember, it might not be what you think. It might not be who you think. And it’s no fun for anyone when two people are fighting over one mind.” Layla tossed Tony the doorix circuit. “See if _Jormungandr_ likes that humorous association upgrade.” Tony blinked and gave the doorix circuit a quick inspection, then looked up to beam at Layla in approval, but she had already vanished further into the hold.

The wind picked up towards evening.

~

Thunder cracked. Ball lightning danced across the ropes and dissipated towards the water. All six crewmembers tumbled from their watches and berths and raced to take in sail when the wind whipped up out of nowhere late at night.

In merely choppy seas the ship seemed nearly stationary, after months of calibrating the acceleration absorbers; however, as the wind continued to rise, Tony clipped himself back into his harness and helped Layla fashion a security rig for herself. Hela made sure to lock one prosthesis or another to the ropes at all times as she and Natasha climbed up to completely fold the foilsails while Amora remained below, magically bleeding energy off the batteries in case of fire.

Another forward lurch over a wave brought Loki out of his cabin, wiping sleep from his eyes. They sent him to help Amora, to reduce the risk of fire, and to free both of them up sooner for controlling the ship herself if the storm got worse.

The waves rose higher than _Jormungandr_. The storm was definitely getting worse.

“Can we make land?” Loki shouted at Layla. He could barely see her through the night and the sheets of rain, but he had a mage light hovering over one shoulder to identify him. “Any port? Some small lee? We can beach her if nothing else!”

Layla hunched against the wind, as if attempting to pull her head into her coat collar like a turtle. “Too many cliffs here —  we’d be dashed to pieces on the rocks before we got out of the swell.” The ship lurched, and Loki hastily hooked an elbow around the nearest rigging before his feet flew out from under him. Layla swung in her harness and slammed into the mizzenmast, then staggered back, dazed. “Onward is the only way, Captain!”

A flash of red hair tumbled out of the blue-black night. Natasha darted past them to haul rope. She shouted, “Are we low in the water?”

An extra chill rolled through Loki’s gut. Too low meant too much water, which meant a leak. “I shall inspect the bilges.” If they had a leak, they might have to throw merchandise overboard. If they had a leak, and the storm went on, and they could not repair it, they were doomed without safe harbor. Something large enough to noticeably weigh them down under these circumstances would only worsen.

Loki stumbled to the hold ladder, aiming in approximately the right direction and allowing momentum to slam him into the wall, where he could grab a railing, point in a new direction, and tumble downwards. He passed the engineer in the engine room, the second mate at the port battery array, the cargo hold piled high with crates, and the door to the false hull. There was no need to descend to the last hold. The foul-smelling water lapped high enough on the ladder to reflect the mage light at a glance. Bruised and battered, Loki tried to send the mage light into the water, but it was besmirched by too many pollutants to be transparent any more.

“ _Jormungandr_?” Loki murmured, then raised his voice and repeated himself. “Can you tell me where the leak is?”

“C-c-c-captain,” the ship said from the nearest speaker. “Th-there is-is-is a hull breach-ch.”

“That is abundantly plain,” snapped Loki, “but _where_?”

“For’ard two degrees starboard two feet below the waterline. For’ard six degrees starboard two feet below the waterline. For’ard eight degrees starboard two feet below the waterline.” Loki sucked in his breath as _Jormungandr_ continued describing the devastation caused to a small ship by some unseen rock or debris scraping along her entire starboard length.

“Hey, Captain Drowned Puppy. We good?” asked Tony, peering over Loki’s shoulder at the murky bilges.

“Very much not. The myriad spells I have woven into this verdant vessel, they are eager to obey. I can make _Jormungandr_ do anything I want. She has served me well. She will dance to my whim, or twist and practically come to life if I so command. It never occurred to me to give her a voice. I cannot save her.”

“Scarp that for a holdful of bilgewater. Basic screw pump, doesn’t need to be water tight, just needs to keep turning all night long.” Tony already had lengths of tubing ripped out of the engine and was laying it down the stairs.  “And that’s what we’ve got three mages for.”

“Wait! What are you doing?”

Tony turned with one boot already in the muck. “Going to swim down, drill through the existing holes, and put the pumps right through the hull. Might be easier than pumping it up three levels, yeah?”

“You will further damage an already damaged ship?”

“No time for repairs, Hamlet. Hold this!” Loki found himself holding an armful of metal and rubber tubes lashed together with strips of grey adhesive.

“Will it explode like the batteries?”

“The batteries didn’t explode yet,” muttered Tony. “They might not have. I probably built them better than that. Amora got there in time anyway. I hate swimming, this place is filthy, I’m probably going to get plague.”

“What are you talking about? You’re not going in that muck.”

“Do you know how to set up a basic screw pump with your eyes closed in the amount of time you have before you run out of air? No? Didn’t think so.”

“I can if you tell me how. Tony Stark, don’t you dare risk yourself when I can … ”

“See you soon, Albatross.” Tony plunged forward, trailing rubber and brass behind him, slipping away from Loki’s reaching grip into the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

~

Oh boy, that was colder than he’d expected. And there was stuff swirling in the water that Tony definitely didn’t want to think about. And there was so much water that Tony definitely _had_ to think about, but it sloshed him around as _Jormungandr_ went over another wave, trying to slam him into the walls; but the walls down here were curved so Tony merely went sliding up them, hoping desperately that _up_ didn’t become _down_ at any point. So he inhaled when he could and tried to ignore what got into his mouth and lungs as he fumbled along to the first damaged point and set to work.

It almost reminded him of …  but remembering was particularly dangerous right now, so Tony filled his mind with angles and pressures and fluid functions.

Had he drowned before? Tony felt like not drowning was unusually important, but that was silly. Not dying was always important. Drowning shouldn’t make a difference.

Saying “No” was also important. His muscles ached more than a day at the forge, but no, he would not stop now, and no, he would not fail. Refusing to fail was easier than determination to succeed.

He curled his free arm around his head and used the momentum of the water to help shove a tube through another hole. Something scraped his arm where his eye would have been, but he tried to ignore it and moved further into the bilges.

Between strips of cloth and tubes, Tony was covered in tar and bilgewater, and no, he would not let _Jormungandr_ go down. He tugged at a screw under the waterline, let the motion of the ship wash him up against the hull, half-swam back and wrenched the screw into place. “You can start up with the twinkly fingers any time now!” he shouted over his shoulder, and started coughing.

With a green light and a hum, the screws started turning, pushing water out of the bilges.

Tony had no way to measure the pumps’ progress, but if the storm outside would just pause, he could mark the wall. Instead, water swirled around him, and his hand slipped off his hold and he went under, losing his sense of direction until he got a leg around part of the centerboard pulley and sucked air in, looking around for the mage light before he slipped again.

An arm reached around his chest, dragging him back almost as much as it dragged him up. Tony briefly panicked, struggling, until a voice breathed in his ear, “Calm yourself, Stark, so that I may magic the tumbling waves while rescuing you from your own foolhardiness.” Loki heaved them both up the ladder stairs until they reached a place where Tony could hook his harness back onto the rigging and they sat, holding onto each other, breathing hard, Loki haloed in green magic.

The wind howled its rage, but now _Jormungandr_ ’s absorbers could deal with the morning’s waves. The storm began to die down.

And they were giggling in relief, heads supported on each others’ shoulders, with the rising sun in the east, black clouds overhead, and a rainbow in the west.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are the cherry on a cookie sundae.


	7. In which Avenger is at sea about peers; illness causes an identity crisis; identity crisis causes a fire; thermodynamics is more important than dynamite, but dynamite is important too; and it’s not nice to have a war in someone else’s mind.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Avenger is at sea about peers; illness causes an identity crisis; identity crisis causes a fire; thermodynamics is more important than dynamite, but dynamite is important too; and it’s not nice to have a war in someone else’s mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter six has become chapters six, seven, and eight, but at least they're done! Then there's just a couple more chapters before they sail snarking off into the sunset.
> 
> As always, thanks to JayBarou for all their help.

Thor, expatriate prince of the northern empire of Asgard, with much good will, had learned the ropes of shipboard duties. He had seen how his hosts had little time to spare to entertain himself and his mother the Queen, who had chosen Thor alone to accompany her on her quest to rehabilitate her youngest son. Thus he came to enquire of those he encountered daily on deck how he might best aid them, thereby passing time in the most divertingly beneficial manner.

In furtherance of his idle goals one evening, Thor sat the starboard rail and made rope.

A ship always needed more rope.

Thor regretted that they had seen not his brother Loki, nor the kidnapped wizard-with-gears Tony Stark, nor yet the foilship _Jormungandr_ and her treacherous crew.

If the captains of his legion had been here, they would not have failed to take their prey in Cape Town. They would have stormed the docks mightily, cutting off all escape. They would have laughed as they fought … 

Thor frowned.

Loki had not laughed as he fought. Amora had laughed, and oh, the saucy minx had swung her weapon with vigour. But Loki had not.

If Thor’s captains had been here, they would have traded quips as they fought. Loki would have tried to drive them to a raging fury with his insults. He probably would have succeeded.

If the captains of Thor’s legion had been here, _Avenger_ would have been a very crowded ship.

Thor sometimes thought his father had an ulterior motive for sending Thor and Frigga away from Asgard. Then he chided himself — of course a king would have multiple reasons for every decision. Thor wished he could trust those reasons. Even more than that, he wished he didn’t feel that expressing his mistrust could be dangerous.

He frowned as the ship lurched noticeably, nearly tossing him across the deck.

 _Avenger_ had drifted gently as a baby’s cradle, and until this moment, Thor had never had trouble keeping his feet.

~

Wanda watched the weather.

She watched it calm and sunny with fair skies, nudging local winds to the tail with her magic. She watched it lash against the sides of the ship, demanding that the ship acknowledge it, while _Avenger_ , buoyant and steady and oblivious, sailed on. Wanda saw the skies turn dark, miles away, and called the warning hours before the storm reached them.

She reached out to touch the storm, turbulent and chaotic, feeling her way toward the center, trying to seek a way to ease the ship’s path through.

"If I focus on the air close to me, it’s easier to see the larger circumstance than if I try to look at the details on the incoming winds. It will soon turn ugly," said Frigga, glowing teal beside Wanda. Asgard’s queen looked with concern at the clouds which gathered.

Wanda laughed a little. "It may be deadly, but it's beautiful."

"Ugly for us mere mortals, then," suggested Frigga.

Carol paused behind them. “Should we find shelter and weigh anchor?” she asked.

“No, Captain, I have it,” said Wanda. “Better prepare for heavy seas within the hour.” She turned to Frigga. “Your Majesty, you might want to retreat to your cabin, soon. _Avenger_ is the best ship around in a storm, but that’s no reason to take unnecessary risks.”

Carol nodded and moved on, trusting her first mate, and shouting orders fore and aft.

“I will consider it,” said Frigga. “Have you ever tried tugging on the tail of the storm from the opposite side?” She attempted to sketch an example in the air over the railing, faint magical lights trailing after her fingers. “In Asgard, we let the energy flow, let it control itself. I’m not sure I’ve seen your style of magic before.”

“That’s how I learned,” said Wanda, “but I have a condition which can be a little out of control if I am not very precise in my actions.” At that moment, _Avenger_ coincidentally hit the exact confluence of wind and wave to make her lurch under their feet. Wanda grimaced daintily. “Like that.”

The storm rose, and lines of shared pink and teal magic danced over _Avenger_ ’s hull until Wanda said regretfully, “Your Majesty, you’re a passenger. You should return to your quarters before this gets worse. Otherwise, you’ll be in the way while we fight this.”

Frigga began to nod when a spurting fizz from below indicated the wrong chemical reaction taking place. Frigga and Wanda exchanged a quick look and headed into the hold.

Frigga ignored the ticking, clicking gears and focused on the crystal array of batteries. “Is this common?”

“More common on a ship with Tony Stark’s modifications, unfortunately,” said Wanda. “And even more regrettably, more common when I have been … experimenting. On the other hand, there is a simple solution. We need to drain off their power before the storm gets worse.”

“Will that not hamper our ability to weather the storm?”

“For now, we remain afloat and let the other sailors do what they need to do. That requires no battery power, merely a well-beamed hull, which we have. When the storm has passed, we will recharge the ship and return to our course.” Wanda smiled. “We only need to remain calm. There is no danger. I have seen many squalls on _Avenger_. Tony’s upgrades may be eccentric, but they will not put us at additional risk.”

~

Tony Stark spent a full week after the storm coughing up the half of the bilges that got in his lungs. He stumbled back out into daylight on day two, squinting at _Jormungandr_ ’s levelers. “J, kiddo, you okay?”

“I do not understand, sir. You have been ill. Why are you asking about me?”

Tony patted her on the railing, and she made a sound very like a purr. Tony beamed. She was finally recognizing affectionate touches and responding with at least the semblance of pleasure. He made a note to start teaching her instead of programming her to see if she responded to rewards. Fortunately, she seemed to like Tony. “Either I have an inner ear infection or you’re listing. Either way, something’s throwing my balance off.”

“You have no balance, sir, and you never did.”

“Is that snark? Did you just dare snark at me?” Tony grabbed the passing third mate by the arm. “Widowmaker, _Jormungandr_ just snarked at me.” Then he screamed quietly and clutched his side.

Natasha resheathed her knife. “Good girl, _Jormungandr_ . He deserves it. Snark more,” she said, patting the railing. _Jormungandr_ purred at her, too.

Tony scowled and examined his fingers. No blood. “You lack discrimination. Bad ship. No purring at people who stab me in the ribs.”

“No complaining about getting stabbed when you laid hands on me first. Keep your hands to yourself and I’ll let you sleep easy.”

Tony eyed Natasha warily, not sure if she was threatening to slit his throat or to merely tie his hammock shut while he was in it. She smiled at him faintly and continued on her way.

“Mr. Stark, have sense,” said the captain from the other side of the well deck. “If you were not so ill that your brains were addled, you would never have made the mistake of touching Ms. Romanov. And we are not listing. Go back to bed.”

“But I don’t want Natasha to cut my throat in my sleep,” whined Tony.

Loki rolled his eyes. “Fear not; that incision would make a mess that she does not want to clean.”

“J, you’ll protect me, won’t you?”

“Certainly, sir. If Ms. Romanov approaches you as you sleep, I can overturn myself and drown everyone. I’m afraid this will damage my balance even more, but apparently that is a price which must be paid.”

Tony stared at the mainmast in fascinated horror. “Coral bones, J, what was on that humor circuit Butterfly engraved?”

“Apparently something dry and morbid, sir.”

A firm hand gripped the back of Tony’s collar. “To bed, Mr. Stark,” Loki sighed, ushering him down the ladder to the dull light of the berth deck.

Tony flailed and coughed helplessly. “Only if you come protect me from J and Widow. Come on, Albatross, you know you want to.”

“You would do better to cease nicknaming Ms. Romanov lest she lose her temper with you again.” Loki pushed Tony past the engine room and around the secured cargo to the spot between boxes where Tony hung his hammock.

“Gotta find just the right one,” Tony mumbled.

“Lift yourself up, Mr. Stark. That’s right. Stay there, lest I have one of the ladies come to sit you.” Loki smirked as he manhandled Tony into place.

“No names are forever.” Tony tried to peek over the cloth edge. “Thought you were calling me Tony.”

“I’ll call you Tony when you’ve earned it, imbecile. You’re half asleep. Don’t try anything.”

Tony lurched upright, half falling out of bed before Loki shoved him back. “That reminds me, I have to try calibrating the olfactory and network crystals to the golden mean. I’ll be right back — oof. No, I mean it, it’s a great savings in memory!”

“A savings that can wait until you can finish a sentence in one breath, Mr. Stark,” said Loki.

“But she purred at Natasha!” Tony whined. The nasal quality of his plaint did not agree with his throat. Loki passed over a handkerchief. It was large and green and started out clean.

“I find being agreeable to Ms. Romanov is good for my health. It’s possible _Jormungandr_ agrees with me.” Loki glanced at a nearby sensor cluster. “ _Jormungandr_?”

“Natasha Romanov. Third mate. Your superior officer, sir,” she droned.

“As if anyone here takes that b-bilgewater seriously. You know we’re more like a family. She’s the little sister who leaves her toys out where you can step on them and trip, and send you careening into a garotte across the doorway, after which she leaves you behind for the sharks.”

“I’m sure she loves you, too, Mr. Stark. Are you going to make me stay here to hold you prisoner, or will you sleep?”

“An’ you’re my little brother, too,” Tony continued to murmur drowsily. “Or something. Something. Always tagging along to make me do somethin’ I don’t want to do.”

“Charming. I am not your shadow. I refuse to follow in any person’s shadow. I will not be the pawn any person tries to make me be.” Loki checked himself, leaned back on the boxes, and sighed. “I am not who I was. Foolish engineer, we are neither of us who we were. I’m sorry about ….  It doesn’t matter. Do you remember, months ago, I gave you my word I would put you ashore with passage home after staying with us for merely one day? I think you’ve repaired every broken cog and crystal we had on that day. How badly have we betrayed you, Cheng Stark? You have fought beside us and fought for us despite the troubles we have brought down on you. We would neither of us be pawns, but we neither of us control our own strings. Would you go home if you could, little engineer?”

Tony answered with a snore.

~

In the marshes of Madripoor, they met a serpentine monster with almost as much magic as a human. They knocked its head off, and it grew two more in its place. They had to run with no more mageroyal than they could carry on their backs, and half of it spoiled before the South China Sea.

On the Mekong Delta, where the Nguyen lords allied with the French, Loki and Natasha successfully traded a barrelful of nothing but plain straw for a casket of gems which were later discovered to be paste. They disposed of the fake stones as real over the course of several Indonesian ports.

They stopped at Hong Kong before Taiwan. The Haijin order said that no mainland ports were open to any ship, Chinese or foreign, but, well, they _were_ smugglers.

While Loki stood deck watch and Layla discussed the benefits of the next route with him, Tony was tinkering with the starboard sensor array, and Hela and Amora were sharing an illicit picnic in the crow’s nest.

“Have you ever heard the story of the Russian sorcerer who kept his heart in a box?” Layla elbowed Loki in the ribs. “Made him immortal.”

“It sounds like yet another way to kill yourself faster in pursuit of a pipe dream,” drawled Loki, standing at the wheel. “Have you heard the story of the Chinese emperor who drank quicksilver daily to extend his life? He died of mercury poisoning.”

Layla laughed. “That reminds me of the Italian artist whose enemies tried to kill him by poisoning with mercury. He was already dying of syphilis, and the mercury cured him. By sheer coincidence, he ate exactly the right dose.”

“Morbid,” said Tony. “Stop infecting _Jormungandr_ with your ghastly humor.”

“She needs it to deal with us, silly.”

Tony groaned. "Don’t say that. You're too honest. I don't trust that. You're fine, Butterfly, I trust you, it's your honesty I have a problem with."

Layla grimaced. “Well, that’s a change. I thought everyone was mad at me because I was keeping too many secrets. Which, they’re wrong, but why don’t you agree?”

“I’ll get back to you when I stop keeping secrets from myself.”

Layla glanced between Tony and Loki, who both looked entirely too thoughtful for her taste. She felt at sea without a map. It was past time to find a harbor.

~

An overcast morning gave way to a beautiful afternoon when Amora and Natasha walked right into the latest _Jormungandr_ upgrade of the engine room on fire.

“It’s perfectly under control!” protested Tony as they dragged him out just ahead of the tongues of flame. “I was just trying to randomize her responses so she seems more human. It’s no fun if she’s too predictable.”

“You deal with him,” said Natasha, and headed back below to put out the fire.

Amora sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. So. Fire is bad. Tony, I don’t think you get this. You keep setting the ship on fire, so I have to keep saying this. No fires on board.”

“No, no, no, no, the fire’s already out, there’s no danger!”

“That’s what you said right before you blew up the boiler!”

Tony flung up the arm Amora wasn’t gripping. “In my defense, we were being chased by pirates at the time! I have it under control now. _Jormungandr_ can put out her own fires. We’re actually safer than ever. I just need a few gallons of soap.”

Amora squawked. “What does soap have to do with putting out fires?”

“Uh, it floats?” said Tony, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Okay. You.” Amora ran a shaking hand through her hair, then pointed at Tony. “You sit in the galley and don’t touch anything. If you touch anything, including soap, I will gut you and make your entrails into sausages. Clear?”

Tony eeped. “Clear, but … ”

“No! No touching, no buts, sit and do nothing or I will not be responsible for the blood on my hands!” Amora bodily hauled him to the galley, a room full of fire-making implements and sadly lacking a lock, but which had the benefit of not being near the engine. She plunked him down with the board partially blocking his escape and went to see how Natasha was doing.

The fire was out and hardly anything was blackened. Natasha was crouching on top of a pipe, studying the fuse which appeared to have been the center of the inferno. Instead of trying to squeeze in with her, Amora leaned against the doorway. “What the blazes?”

“Ha.” Natasha dragged a finger through a crumbling yellow substance. “I did not need to do anything to put the fire out. However, if we had not been here, he would have remained too close and burned his face off, so.”

Amora sighed, faintly agreeing. “So.”

Natasha nodded briskly. “I will recommend to the captain that the cheng is not left alone when he is in the engine room.”

“Great.”

“The alternative is to get rid of him.” She arched an eyebrow.

“Don’t be silly, Nat, he’s doing great things.”

“True. It is not worth killing him to see what he will create tomorrow.”

“It’s not worth me dying, either!” Amora protested. “Having me babysit just means I’ll get caught in the explosion, too. It’s not as if I would know the difference between doorix and dynamite.”

“Layla can edit her charts just as easily in the corridor outside the engine room. She can handle it,” Natasha decided. “For the rest, we will manage.”

“Sure,” said Amora, tamping down on a strong urge to laugh. She turned to head to her hammock. “Layla can babysit. You talk to her. Tony can stay in the galley while I go have a quick nervous breakdown.”

~

No one watched as Loki walked the strakes, climbing along the outside of the hull, working his magic on his ship. He smoothed away storm damage and refreshed the paint, just a little, not enough to look like a ship that had not been months at sea.

At the coiling wooden figurehead, he paused and touched the snake under her chin. “Hello, darling, are you keeping well?”

The serpent briefly writhed, muscles rippling, and resettled in a new knot.

“Are you keeping loyal?” Loki looked for the nearest sensors Tony Stark had added to his ship. “ _Jormungandr_ , can you hear me?”

There was an acoustic transducer at the base of the bowsprit, just over Loki’s head. “Yes, Captain,” she said.

“Where is the seat of your knowledge, dearest? Your sense of self? Where are _you_ right now? In your engine room? At the mainmast?”

“My awareness is in all the sensors spread throughout my body, Captain,” said _Jormungandr_ , “but my memory and thought are below decks.”

“I think we’ll move _you_ to the figurehead’s head, dearest. You’re coiling around the Earth — wouldn’t you like that?” Loki closed his eyes, holding the snake’s head lightly between his fingertips. “Let me know when you’re here.” He mentally touched the clockwork which kept his ship sailing forward, and released his magic to let it go wild.

He felt the body of the ship crackle inside the organic compounds which made up her hull. The wood and plastic and high-carbon steel reacted to the mix of electricity and magic with the faintest of external groans where his cold magic met the heat of the engine room. The green serpent shifted and raised its head to look dramatically onward. Loki chuckled and patted it on its head. _Jormungandr_ purred from her speaker.

Loki appreciated interesting times. Their little war for the soul of the ship would only become more interesting when Tony Stark found out about it.

~

The green mountains of the Beautiful Isle swept into view as soon as _Jormungandr_ rounded Dasol Bay north of Manila. Isla Formosa had three major ports along its length: Tainan, Taichung, and Taipei.

While Loki was charging the battery array at port Taipei, Tony decided to go shopping, preferably away from anyone who might make his memory act up with ill-considered words. He found a textiles market and traded his clothes in as a substitute for cleaning them, then wandered, admiring the lanterns and wares in the market.

Tony didn’t see the people following him inland, but he tried to be realistic about the fact that they were probably around. He refused to let that intimidate him. Well, he might be a little intimidated, but there were more important things to do than worry about his safety, by the ship! He had been waiting for this since the Mediterranean, and he was going to get his chaotic systems set up if it killed him.

It probably wouldn’t kill him, Tony was eighty-eight percent sure.

Taipei’s famous tech sector was on the hills.

The best real estate was reserved to graveyards on the mountains which made up the center of the isle. For those with the money to excavate, the second-best real estate was underneath the graveyards.

At Fantastic Labs, Tony charmed dynamologist Ms. Sue Storm into leading him into a well-lit concrete research facility poured into the mountain. "He'll be with you in a minute if you give him a reason to. I'm sorry, but he's a little difficult."

Reading between the lines, Tony substituted 'a lot' for 'a little,' and 'I don't know you personally, but you're famous even here' for 'Hello, Mr. Stark.' He preened. “Call me Tony. Don’t worry about difficult, difficult and I are best friends. Better than best. Extremely close, even.”

Sue giggled, then looked appalled at herself, and briskly continued down the hall.

Several of the labs had windows looking out to the tunnel. Tony glanced at one of the meters they walked past and felt a tingle of blue light suppressing his memory. He looked up to see Sue regarding him curiously.

“Are you all right, Tony?”

“Just remembering.” Or not. He gestured toward the meter, keeping his eyes turned away. “I don’t want to hamper the scientific process, but there’s no way that could be about to go wrong in a very interesting but very painful way, is there?”

Sue sighed. “I can see you’ll get along well.” She studied the meter. “I’ll be right back. Wait here.”

Tony didn’t wait there, but the hall was straight and Sue really did come right back, muttering to herself under her breath about careless lab technicians. They went through a dry shower, grimacing at the strong wind which was intended to strip them of even the smallest speck of dust which might damage sensitive equipment or experiments, and pulled cleansuits over all their other clothes before entering a large grey room full of glowing jars, with one man working at the far end.

“Dr. Richards, Tony Stark,” Sue introduced them.

“What do you want?” Richards asked shortly.

Tony ignored that but smiled anyway. "Why’ve you got all these glowy things?" he asked, running his hand along the lines of glass bulbs. "This doesn't look like gas." Even through the cleansuit’s gloves, he burned his fingers on one jar which was glowing a barely visible purple, and snatched his hand back, swearing.

Richards craned his neck to see what Tony was looking at. "Each one is a different flow of electricity running through a different filament. That one is platinum. Our source of electricity is mostly from the tides, with backup rain-batteries. We used to need those a lot in the times when pirates or invaders would sabotage the tidal generators as part of their pillaging.”

“Reed made the generators explosive,” volunteered Sue, “and strangely, they now get torpedoed far less often."

“I’m testing these lights for filament durability now.”

“Plus, light,” said Sue easily. “Good for seeing things.”

Tony bent to peer at some of the bluer lights. “Are any of these explosive? Cause I could use a clear, steady light in the engine room. As it is, I have to use the glow from the batteries after the sun goes down, or hope one of the mages can help. Everything else … tch.” He clicked his tongue disparagingly. “Problems of working on a ship. The littlest chance of fire makes everyone flutter. I’m not actually here for lights.” Tony waved his hands to clear the conversation out of the air. “I’m here for Dymaxion hypercubes and evolutionary connectives and free will and … well, I have a list. I hear you have some of this and know where I can get the rest?”

Richards reluctantly took Tony’s scrap of list and read it. “I see. Do you need a Tesseract? We’ve reduced the time it takes to construct one to five years, in hypothesis.”

“Albatross has one he’ll probably let me use. I could make it but I don’t have the time.” Tony felt the blue amnesia starting up, so he hastily diverted his thoughts. “But hey, an extra wouldn’t go amiss. ”

“Two Tesseracts close to each other? I hope it’s a large ship.”

“Huge.” Tony grinned sharply and settled down to bargain.

“Free will,” said Sue, plucking the list out of Reed’s fingers. “Really?”

“Or a close approximation thereof.” Tony waved a hand dismissively at the notion that his approximations would be anything but the finest on earth. “It’s an age-old problem which has become unexpectedly personal these last three months.”

“It’s just odd you would come here asking about that. We can’t just box up and give you something so metaphysical, but … ” Sue hesitated. “I’m doing brain-chaos research. You know how the mind is a derivative effect of the synaptic functions of the brain, and there are nearly infinite possible brain-states, which can only be roughly predicted on a small scale.”

“Sure. You can’t model it because the model has to be exact, and the tiniest change to the initial conditions plus enough time yields vastly different results.”

“Exactly! So when making a decision, you need the results of time on those very specific initial conditions. And the magnetic switch modeler you invented last year has been extremely useful in looking at hundreds of thousands of initial conditions! We were very pleased with you and your invention here at Fantastic Labs. Uh … Mr. Stark?”

An ocean of blue swept him away.

Tony blinked, all-too-familiar with the sensation of just recovering from a terrible headache. And he recognized that light source against a cavernous stone ceiling.

“Your eyes,” said an interested voice. “Do they often do that? Um, glow blue? Because that’s the exact color of Cherenkov radiation, which usually means you’re dead if you see it. If you can do it again, I’ve almost got the Geiger counter ready.”

“Reed!” Sue chided, helping Tony sit up.

Tony peered at Richards, trying to decide if the man was trying to get a reaction out of him. Probably not. He decided to give them a reaction anyway. “Not dead yet, nope. If you really want to see something interesting, you’ll look at my brain instead of my eyes. Speaking of free will, you know. Well, actually you probably don’t.”

“Mr. Stark!” interrupted Sue, sounding scandalized. “You just collapsed in the middle of the lab while showing every indication of serious magical intervention. What is going on?”

“Just a little memory trap. Never mind, it’s boring. About my list … ”

“Is that possible?” Sue asked dubiously.

Tony forced a laugh. “Obviously it’s possible, whatever ‘it’ is. Are you telling me you’ve ever encountered the impossible?”

“A magical memory trap.”

“That makes your eyes glow blue,” added Richards, waving the Geiger counter. Tony regarded it warily.

“You know what, several of the things on your list are in my lab,” said Sue. “Let’s move this over there so I can scan you.” She glared at Tony as he began to speak. “Proper medical treatment will be part of any deal we close.”

Tony rattled his fingers on a table thoughtfully. He’d be gone soon and never have to speak with them again. If they could supply everything _Jormungandr_ needed, it was worth a little poking and prodding.

Hours later, having run them both through the gauntlet, Sue traced the shape of a dark line streaking through the image of Tony’s hippocampus. “This isn’t good.”

Tony rattled his fingers against the side of the machine. “It’s growing, it’s always been there, that’s all there is to it, forget about it. It’s freeing, really. See you next time I’m in Taipei, not that there’ll be a next time, but don’t worry about it, smart scientist like you shouldn’t worry about me. I’ve got other stuff to worry about.”

“Mr. Stark,” said Sue gently, and Tony couldn’t stand the pity in her eyes.

“There is no treatment. Gonna help me with the whole quality of life thing? Because I made a promise.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “About my list. I can pay, you know.”

Sue sighed. “Yes, I know.”

~

Sleeping in a real bed felt uncomfortable. Tony was surprised to be looking forward to getting back to his hammock and _Jormungandr_ rocking him to dreamland.


	8. In which Steve did have a plan; there is chaos both general and specific;  Frigga dances spears on the rooftops of Taipei; and some people talk before they fight but some really don’t.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve did have a plan; there is chaos both general and specific; Frigga dances spears on the rooftops of Taipei; and some people talk before they fight but some really don’t.

On the second day of shore leave, Tony slid into a drinking establishment and found a bartender with whom he shared a language in only two tries. “Anything but rum. I’ve had too much rum shipboard these last months. Whiskey? I feel like I might be a whiskey person. Scotch if you have it.”

He hadn’t drunk alone in months. His crew were more than happy to drink a shot or ten with him while in port, and rum was rationed at mealtime while on board. The bar was dark enough to obscure any cultural differences: there were walls, a floor, chairs and tables, and light from the noontime sun streaming through the open door. It was perfect for forgetting Sue Storm and her sympathetic eyes and intrusive brain scans.

Half a bottle later, Tony was pondering how he would make the table intelligent so he could have someone to talk back to him. “You know, I thought they were after me because I broke the law, but now I’m not so sure. And if I never broke the law, then what were they rescuing me from? What was I running from? Was I ever running from them in the first place? Why didn’t they stop chasing me when the reward was repealed? Why was there a reward in the first place if all they’re going to do is have me sign papers? Who am I that signing papers in Cape Town was worth that big a reward?”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“No one,” Tony mumbled into his drink, then looked up when someone hooked a chair and sat next to him. Tony peered at the big blond. “You look familiar. Not that I’m going to try to remember, because that never works out well. But just to inform you. You seem familiar.”

“Tony.”

“That right there? That is the tone of voice of a responsible person. I know. I’ve figured it out. We’ve got a responsible person. Or two. Or three. Not me. Responsible person wouldn’t feed a foilship sugar before putting her to bed. I might have had one more than I meant to have.” Tony peered suspiciously at the glass in front of him as if it contained a tally of his drinks. Where had he seen glass lately? Oh, right.

“I try.” The man narrowly watched Tony attempt to balance three glasses on each other in a failed attempt to create a vacuum. “Call me Steve. Do you have a problem with the law?”

Tony laughed harshly. “Do I have a problem with the law? Why would I admit it if I did? Oh, scarping escarpment, are you law enforcement? Are you going to arrest me? Did I do something illegal?”

“That’s … not exactly my plan, Tony. Do you want to talk about something you’ve done which might not be illegal?”

Something clicked in Tony’s head, and he stared at Steve, realizing, “Oh, hey, you know my name.” Then he laughed. “Well, why wouldn’t you know my name? Everyone seems to know my name! I’m very worth knowing.”

“Yes, very worth knowing, Tony,” said a voice behind him, and Tony jerked around to stare up at a tall woman. She gave him a friendly grin and cast a quick eye over the tumblers on the table. “You’ve had more than a few, haven’t you.” She laid a hand under his elbow and started gently nudging him up. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.”

“Uh, yeah, no,” said Tony, jerking back quickly, but there was Steve on one side and the new woman on the other, the table in front of him and the wall behind.

“Carol,” said Steve in a very low and careful voice, “I’m handling it.”

“I can see you handling it,” said another woman, and Tony twisted around again to see Natasha standing with Amora. “ _Cap_.”

“Oh, yay, reinforcements,” said Tony weakly, and missed the look of dismay that passed between Steve and Carol. “You people have got to stop sneaking up on me. Where’s everybody else?”

“I found a back way in.” Natasha looked far too calm for the situation in which they found themselves. “The rest will meet us here later. Did you find what you were looking for?”

Tony perked up and took a deep breath to start talking about everything he’d seen at Fantastic Labs, then hesitated. Natasha was staring at him very pointedly, and Amora was darting worried little glances at the two large people flanking him. Like guards, he supposed. “Yeah, tell you later,” Tony mumbled, and began trying to work out how to push his chair back.

“If you have a moment, I’d love to talk with you, Tony,” Steve said quickly. “And … your … friends.”

“People are worried,” warned Carol softly.

“Nat,” hissed Amora, “maybe we shouldn’t … ”

“I thought you wanted to keep him, Amora.” Natasha continued to stare straight into Tony’s eyes as he looked more confused. “You like having a ship whose waterwheels don’t go out every other day. Are you suggesting we abandon a comrade just because the enemy has a dozen people outside and we have no idea where the rest of our crew is?”

“What!?” squawked Tony.

“Keep calm, Mr. Stark!” snapped Natasha. “The Cap — I mean, Commodore Rogers — has invited you to talk. I think it would be a very good idea. Invite us to sit.”

Tony flapped an obliging hand. There was a slow, prowling dance while the other four stared at each other mistrustfully, and found chairs.

“I think you know who I am,” Natasha continued when they were seated. “And Lady Amora Incantare.”

Steve and Carol confirmed with identical slight nods. “Lady?” asked Tony.

“Formerly. Tony, Amora, may I present Commodore Steve Rogers, the hero of SHIELD, and Captain Carol Danvers of the _Avenger_ , also of SHIELD.”

“How much do you know about everyone following us?” asked Tony. “Why have you never mentioned this before?”

“I have,” said Natasha. “You just didn’t hear.”

Hear, not listen, Natasha said. Tony’s lips formed a silent ‘O,’ as he began trying to work out how much he could even think about this situation before it started blueing out his thoughts again.

“For how long are you in town, Commodore?” asked Natasha.

“Undetermined,” said Steve, flicking a glance at Tony.

“Oh, for physics’ sake,” said Tony, “this is Pepper all over again.” He glared at Steve. “I thought she talked to you.”

Steve smiled. “You remember.”

“You hurt my ship.”

“Oh, bilges,” whispered Carol.

“And they’re very sorry,” said Natasha swiftly. She was doing the staring thing again.

Tony shifted uncomfortably. “Hey, whose side are you on?

“Or am I wrong?” Natasha continued, eyeing Steve and Carol. “Are you inconsequential bounty hunters with no personal stake in the fate of Tony Stark? I do recommend you answer in simple terms if you wish Tony to remain part of the conversation. There was an accident with … well, I can’t talk about that, either.”

“Oh, nice, Spider, I feel very loved.”

Steve looked back and forth between them, resting a fist overly casually on the table. “Tony.” He leaned forward. “Are you being mind controlled?”

Tony slumped forward, smacking his head against the table. Then he smacked it several more times for good measure before rolling to one side and looking up. “Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? How do you answer that kind of question for yourself, much less anyone else?”

“It’s not mind control!” shouted Amora. “It’s just memory.” She squirmed in her seat.

Tony lifted his head slowly, staring at Amora with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He suddenly felt very sober. “You know that for a fact, do you?”

Natasha gave Amora a dirty look. The crew of the _Avenger_ moved swiftly, and Tony found himself shoulder to shoulder with two huge fighters, who seemed intent on defending him from his friends, but who were also boxing him in, and clearly one wrong move away from kidnapping him themselves.

“The details of your invention were a little unclear,” drawled a cultured voice, “but you did seem quite intent upon testing it yourself. Perhaps I should have stopped you, but you were far from the only person who had imbibed excessively that night. And then there was the arrow bomb, which you must admit, was neither a friendly action nor definitively aimed away from you.” Loki ambled into the bar.

“Clint,” groaned Carol.

“I did offer you a fair employment contract. The deal stands, by the way.” He smiled regally at them all.

“Captain Odinson, I have two warrants for your arrest," said Steve.

Tony perked up. “Odinson?"

“ _No_ ," snarled Loki at Tony. Tony blinked wide eyes, looking insincerely hurt.

"One from SHIELD," continued Steve as if they hadn't spoken, "and one from Asgard. The Dutch will recognize both here on Isla Formosa."

"In that event, all I need do is restrict myself to native Taiwan and you cannot touch me," said Loki.

“Nice one, Albatross,” said Tony. “Except … do you know which legal fiction we’re in right now?”

At the endearment, Steve looked up, his eyes flicking between Tony’s and Loki’s faces. “The Dutch control the docks. Shall I ask them to impound your ship?” Tony clenched his fists at the idea of anyone laying hands on his clever _Jormungandr_. “Tony, it doesn’t have to go that way.”

Loki stood. “Stark, a piece of advice. When someone threatens to blackmail you, never let them finish, or it never will be finished. You will end your life still paying.” Tony scrambled after Loki out the door, then froze, looking around at the overly casual crowd surrounding the bar.

“Hey, Tony,” Steve called from the door. He held up a growing blue-white torus braced with copper around a triangular stone. It hummed faintly as the tiny clockwork in its center turned.  “Remember this?”

“Stark,” breathed Loki, back to back with Tony, “get ready to run.”

“What?” said Tony.

“Brother, no! Stop him!” Thor reacted first, covering the distance with a raised hammer. Loki raised a warding hand between them.

White fog flooded the welkin.

Confused shouts echoed across the square, including at least four people yelling to head to the docks or the ships. Blind footsteps clattered in eight directions, scattered across town.

~

Hela escorted Layla through the twisting alleys, grinning at the kid’s laughter and bobbing around passersby. That was why she didn’t see Prince Thor sitting on a barrel outside the meeting place until they were almost on top of him.

He stood. She bristled. He thundered. She barked back. The crowds wandering the street started to shift as they sensed a fight, and either moved to get out of its reach, or circled to get a good view. Thor started yelling about treason, and Hela had had enough of that long before she’d ever committed treason.

“I came for a drink, and I’m not leaving without one,” growled Hela.

“Want to bet?” Layla laughed.

Hela was about to respond sharply when the rest of _Jormungandr_ ’s crew rushed out of the bar door, and Captain Loki saw his brother and panicked. Loki panicking might not lead to the best plans, but at the moment, Hela was happy with anything which would shut Thor up.

While the mists were still thickening was the time to act. Hela’s arm cannon was impractical to wear at all times, so she had left it with _Jormungandr_. She was left with the small caliber ammunition packed into her wrist. It wouldn’t kill a human unless she got a lucky hit, but it was enough to create confusion when she shot out the pole propping up a dung cart across the street.

Taipei was a maze designed to discourage pirates. On cobblestones, Hela was as fast as anyone else. She had already plotted the quickest route to the ship, so she turned to grab someone so they could all stick together and escape with the least difficulty, but Amora was already disappearing around a corner, and there was Bucky Barnes between her and Tony.

Hela tried to dodge the man’s silver arm, yelling at her crew to assemble on the captain, but too much was happening, and both groups were equally distracted by numerous diversionary tactics.

Silver hand met silver arm and sparked.

~

Wanda waited, every sense active, to get her bearings in the net of confounding magic. She heard footsteps in every direction going every direction, but there was nothing she could understand until she came face to face with the smugglers' captain.

Loki’s eyes and hands blazed with green magic. Wanda answered with a pink aura flaring around her. Their eyes darted, each reading their opponent. After a tense moment, they both stepped back and gave each other formal nods. Wanda cast an exploratory tendril of magic which, when Loki countered it with an equal tendril, splorted into bells, bubbles, moths, and more mist. They stared at the resulting mess with dismay.

Loki clenched his fists. “That is too chaotic. We could tear this island apart if we fought.”

“Or turn Taiwan into a turtle, which is not optimal,” agreed Wanda. “I will not fight if you will not fight.”

“I will not be made captive because you refuse to fight,” sneered Loki.

Wanda nodded with dignity. “In that case, you had best leave. We outnumber you. I do not wish for my more temperamental companions to force a fight.”

“You may have more fighters, but I wager we have more magic.”

“Are you so certain of that, Mr. Odinson?” Wanda asked gently. She watched Loki’s magic and the mist around them react to the surname with furious flames, and prepared to defend herself, when a hand touched her shoulder. Wanda turned to look at Sam, the _Avenger_ ’s second mate. When she turned back, Loki was gone.

~

Clint moved his eyes slowly, knowing he would have the best chance of seeing something, anything. He stepped back and stepped back again, trying to put a wall behind him.

The mist turned daytime dim but not dark. He felt almost at home.

Stark’s red coat stood out the best in these poor conditions. Clint almost casually drew a net arrow and nocked it to his bow. “Eeny, meenie, miney … ” Hands grabbed his shoulders from behind. He elbowed backwards and wound up tumbling downhill, desperately defending his neck and eyes from cruelly darting fingers. Clint flipped his attacker over his shoulder and was flipped in turn, rolling with it to gain a moment of space and to eye her next move.

“Why did you people have to make tracks inland on Madripoor? I nearly got swallowed by a giant hundred-headed snake,” Clint whined.

“Did it spit you out because you tasted so bad?” asked Natasha, knocking his legs out from under him, then trying to strangle him with his own bow.

“Not telling, not telling.” Clint thumped his head back into hers and squirmed free. Briefly. “Gyre and gimble, how do you move so fast, woman!”

“Practice makes perfect.” She gripped him by the hair and slammed his head into a gatepost. “Something you clearly need more of.” She slammed him again, and he kicked back into her stomach, pushing against the gatepost to grind her into the opposite wall.

“I’ll have you know you can’t improve upon perfection, lady.”

“Then you can deal with a wrench in the gears.” Natasha dragged then both over a railing. Clint leaped to his feet, looking one way, then the other, but she was not in his line of sight. “You may think you can be proud of your eyesight, but you’re bilgewater at observation,” she said over his head, vanishing beyond the roof overhang. Clint chimneyed up the alley walls after her and nocked another arrow, crouching low, scanning slowly, looking for movement. He could see barely further over the rooftops than he could on the street, and the only noises were below.

~

Amora stepped past the corner of a many-bracketed building and flung a hand up, glowing with magic.

There was no one there.

She pursed her lips and darted a glance up and down the alley, so narrow that two people passing each other would have to be very friendly, then moved to the next corner along the tortuous route to the sea.

It should have been all downhill, but Taipei was designed to befuddle invaders, and even natives could get lost. Amora almost released her spell again, then came very near to pouting when the streets remained empty.

She saw the door to a courtyard slam shut ahead and deliberately ran to it, then slowed with quiet footsteps, and edged past it while facing it. No one moved. Amora backed away, then whirled with another spell ready and slammed it full into the face of Captain Danvers of the _Avenger_.

Carol flew back a hundred feet, her back slamming into the cobblestones. Fighting through the pain, she forced herself to her feet before the woman with two glowing hands could reach her. Using her sword to lever herself into a balanced stance, she swung just in time to knock Amora’s hands aside. There was little room to slash with a sword; Carol chopped to keep distance as she backed away to the nearest side street.

Amora smiled cruelly and let her opponent create space as she prepared a larger spell. Distance could only favor a mage over a sword fighter. She didn’t see Carol’s off hand begin to glow.

The captain could not craft spells on the level of most magic users, but it was not uncommon in an organization such as SHIELD to pick up a few tricks. Little charges which exploded on impact were in reach of most intelligent people with a few months of application.

Carol’s charges glittered deep gold, and they had enough force to both push and sting.

“Why are you doing this?” Amora moaned.

“Seriously? You started it, you bloodthirsty lunatic.”

“You just won’t stop _following_. It’s been thousands of miles! Go away and let us be! We could be happy if people would just leave us alone!”

“Let me tell you something about kidnappers, kiddo,” said Carol harshly. “I don’t let them be. I don’t leave them alone. And I won’t let you get away with it.”

“It was … ” Amora tried to remember what Loki had called it. “It was a fair employment contract. And he’s not done fixing our ship yet, so he can’t get out of the contract. And he doesn’t want you! He wants to stay with us. So shoo!”

“Is that why he looked at you like you’d just stabbed him in the back/gut?”

Amora flinched and let her spell burst forth from her fingertips. She turned and ran and didn’t look back when the fiery roar stopped.

~

Tony jumped over a wall and found himself face to face with a caged blue magpie giving him an evil look. The courtyard was full of birds and Taiwanese people. One woman drew her children close to her. Tony raised his hands placatingly, and whispered apologies in half a dozen languages to four generations. None of them responded, but the oldest matriarch raised a gnarled finger and pointed at chairs piled in a spiral. “Uh, _xie xie_ ,” Tony murmured, even though Taipei was not majority Mandarinophonic at that time. “ _Dankjewel_ ,” he added on the hypothesis that it was a Dutch trade town, so someone living near the docks might know a few words of Dutch, and clambered up the chairs to the roof and back into the fog.

~

Loki froze when a woman in teal satin and a bronze breastplate leapt off a roof in front of him. She twirled her glaive almost idly, as if warming up with a quarterstaff. The whirl of wooden pole and three feet of Asgardian steel blade effectively blocked the alley, while a crossroad gave her room to maneuver.

“Mother.”

“Son.”

Loki gave his head a shake, stepping back towards the general melee. “Frigga.”

“Loki.” Slow turns of the glaive, leaving behind a trace of indigo light spiralling through the air. The mist burned away from the space between them. “You have been avoiding me, my dear.”

“I have business to attend to,” said Loki shortly.

“Fleeing justice?”

“Fleeing injustice,” Loki snapped, then took a deep breath.

“Must I demand you come to my chambers to discuss your punishment, as I did when you were a child?” asked Frigga.

“You have no right to make such a demand of me any more, Mo … Frigga.”

“This profession you have set yourself is not honorable.”

“Asgardian honor,” Loki sneered.

“Dearest, if you have wronged someone, you must make amends.”

“You criticise my vocation and now mock my associations?

Frigga studied Loki’s face carefully. “I do not take issue with your friends, dearest, only your methods of keeping them.”

Loki laughed in her face. “Loki No-man’s-son has no friends. Who would trust him? Is that not what they said when they were wreaking their revenge? I will tell you, Mo …  Frigga, that General Hela did Asgard no wrong until after they betrayed her. After you betrayed her! Do not pretend to love me, Asgardian queen. I have seen where Asgardian love leads us.”

“I may not pretend love, but you may pretend friendship? Loki … ”

Loki screamed his rage and threw his cloak out, entangling the glaive. He pulled back, dragging Frigga towards him, and shoved her head down with the other arm, vaulting over her back, somersaulting across the tiled gutter in case she threw the glaive after him. She was unfortunately not foolish enough to toss away her primary weapon like that. Loki took the next two turns and found a chicken coop that provided enough of a boost to get onto the roofs himself. He bit his wrist to still a hysterical impulse to laugh, then ran for the docks.

~

Jen Walters reached the docks without coming close enough to anyone to see them through the mist, and hunted among the merchants for a small green and gold foilship.

She hesitated when she saw the captain standing by the foremast, just a few feet from the gangplank, inspecting his fingernails. He hadn’t noticed her yet. He moved very little. Jen’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Actually, he wasn’t moving at all. She bent to pick up a scrap of wood and threw it at Captain Loki. It flew straight through the illusion and bounced off the mast.

“Please state your name and affiliation,” said a bland female voice from somewhere in the fog.

“How about you first, sweetie?” said Jen, craning her neck to try to see the speaker.

The voice did not change inflection. “I am _Jormungandr_. I am the affiliation for others. Please state your name and affiliation.”

“Isn’t that nice? I’m Jennifer Walters, and I’m the _Avenger_ ’s factor.”

“Jennifer Walters, _Avenger_ ’s factor. Welcome aboard.”

“So kind of you.” Jen smirked toward the voice, but as she moved further onto the deck, she saw no one. The ship seemed empty of everything but white smog and the silent illusion. She gave the illusion another poke for good measure as she neared it, but her hand passed through without resistance.  “ _Jormungandr_ , are you with Hydra?”

“No.”

Jen shrugged mentally; she hadn’t exactly expected anyone to be foolish enough to admit it. “ _Jormungandr_ , perhaps you can answer another question for me.”

“Ask.”

“Ask and you’ll answer, is that it?”

“Maybe.”

“Not very talkative, are you, sweetie? Tell me, why do you think we have to be enemies?” There was silence from the fog. Jen poked at the illusion of Captain Loki. It sighed and inspected its fingernails. “ _Jormungandr_?”

“The question cannot be answered as stated,” said _Jormungandr_. “You are presuming facts about my mental state which are false. Mr. Stark has been teaching me about fallacies.”

Jen blinked, a little startled. “Well. Good on Tony.”

“Oh, hi, it’s you!” said a young, cheerful voice from the gangplank.

Jen turned, trying to see through the fog. “In the flesh. Do I know you?”

“Layla Miller, Navigator,” whirred _Jormungandr_. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thank you, Jorm,” said Layla, patting a railing. The ship purred. Jen peered in the direction the noise had come from and tried patting the mast, but the ship did not respond. “And you’re Jen Walters. Is anyone else here?”

Jen paused, analyzing Layla’s smile. It was far too knowing for comfort. “Well, I wouldn’t know, now would I, dear? There could be a double dozen people not two strides away and I couldn’t tell until one sneezed.”

“Well, yes, true. Let’s avoid that. I think that would be a good idea, don’t you? Everyone else is way too trigger-happy.”

“I agree that a bit more calm from certain parties might be a good thing,” Jen said cautiously.

“And maybe the calmest parties can help pacify the rest?” Layla suggested.

“Well, I don’t know about pacifying my lot, honey. They’re such a rambunctious crew. I might have to tie them down to have any effect.”

Layla winced. “That would really, really backfire with my crew. Too much experience. Tell you what. I’ll bring my third mate and you bring your first mate to a place of your choosing, and if that goes well I can at least tell you where _Jormungandr_ is headed next, and you can assure me we won’t have any more pitched battles while we try to work this whole thing out. Queen Frigga is probably also calm enough, but she’s a little too close to a different problem which I think we should avoid for a first meeting, because there’s no way to bring our closest person to that problem without having a huge family squabble, and then all the tables will wind up overturned and I won’t get my dessert. Hi, Tony.”

Tony’s voice drifted out of the fog, sounding tired. “Hi, Butterfly.”

“Hi, Tony,” called Jen hopefully.

There was a long pause. “You okay, Butterfly?”

“Just fine,” Layla chirped. “Just us three girls.”

“Please do not be concerned, sir,” said _Jormungandr_. “I am monitoring the situation.”

“Uh, good, good, good. Great. Good. Um. Are you sure you’d recognize a threatening situation if you saw one?”

“I trust her judgement more than yours,” Layla said cheekily.

“I created her judgement!” Tony squawked, rushing up the gangplank. “I built it from the ground up! Those decision trees are _legendary_ , how can you say her decisions are better than mine when I decided how her decisions were formed!”

Jen met Layla’s eyes and had to clap a hand over her mouth to muffle laughter. “When you actually use your own decision trees, I’ll trust you to handle decision making. Until then, you’ve kind of lost the benefit of the doubt.”

Tony peered at Jen dubiously. “Great. Another one. I’ll just fire up the boiler in case we need to dump her overboard again.” He stomped past them and prepared to slide himself under the boiler’s control panel.

“Tony, be nice,” chided Layla. “This is Ms. Walters. We’re arranging a parley.”

Tony hesitated. “Yeah. Layla, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about, say, me doing dangerous testing on my own mind in Athens, would you? I wouldn’t risk my mind. That doesn’t sound like me.”

“You would absolutely risk your own mind, Tony,” said Jen, shaking her head.

“You shush. I wasn’t talking to you, I don’t know you from a banana. Don’t touch my ship. You wouldn’t like my ship if she gets angry.”

Jen raised her hands to shoulder height placatingly. “I know how that is. You don’t even want to know what kind of beating _Avenger_ can take.” Jen smirked smugly.

He bit his lip, frowning at the deck. “Layla? I’m asking.”

Layla glanced at Jen guiltily, then looked at Tony sadly and crouched down next to the boiler. “It might have been a joint effort by everyone but Natasha. But Tony? We didn’t have to let you believe that your friends were going to hurt you, either.”

Tony jerked back, breathing hard.

“Just remember that you’re not the only one who has to learn they have friends, okay, Cheng?” She patted his arm once and tried not to look hurt. Turning back to Jen, she added, “Tomorrow? Noon? Same bar?”

“If it’s still standing, sure thing. I’d better run before things get hairy. Toodles!” She headed down the gangplank, running into Captain Loki at the foot, who tried not to look startled and angry. Jen looked at Loki, then turned to look at the illusion of Loki standing under the mast. She shuddered and hurried on.

“Remember we were _planning_ a parley!” Layla shouted over the port rail at Jen as she walked back to her ship. Jen half-turned and waved.

Loki, Layla, and Tony stood quietly on deck, listening to the soft waves and faint wood-on-wood of ships pushing against the docks and avoiding each other’s eyes.

“We should leave.”

“Scarp that, I ordered a million parts that won’t be ready for a week.”

Loki shook his head. “You drew their attention. We’ll just have to deal with that circumstance, unless you crave whatever dungeon they plan for your edification. I’m sure you’ll find it pleasant, chained in the hold all the way back to Europe.”

“Fine!” Tony flung his arms about haphazardly. “I’ll abandon ship, I don’t care, I’ll build a new _Jormungandr_ out of those parts, and she’ll sail me out of reach of SHIELD and smugglers alike. I’ll take up pirate hunting and bring in prizes and engineer the best talking ship this ocean has ever seen.”

Loki caught his breath, searching Tony’s face. “Mr. Stark, you don’t want to expose yourself to the mercies of whomsoever might discover you while you journey hither, thither, and yon without protection. SHIELD and smugglers are not your only problems. We can circle the island and double back. If we can thus throw off pursuit, we will return and gather your materiel without waste of time.”

“Sure thing. Not like I have any say in my own life these days, Prince Odinson.”

A muscle in Loki’s jaw spasmed. He slammed a hand down on the railing. “If you call me that again I will rip out your tongue and hang it for the ravens to feast upon.”

“Easy, there, Albatross! It was just a joke.”

“Your joke lacked humor. Get you below decks and ponder that.”

Tony rolled his eyes at Loki. “You’re snarling worse than a Gordian knot. I’ll be back when you’re less grumpy.”

As he headed below, he heard Loki call, “We leave when all are aboard. Let’s ready the sails, Ms. Miller.”

~

In the hold, Tony propped himself where he couldn’t fall over if he had a moment of aggravated amnesia, and thought things over.

Fact 1: Tony couldn’t remember anything before _Jormungandr_ left Athens. He couldn’t even try to remember. Facts 1a through 1cp involved the physical details of the results of trying to remember various things. 1bc through 1br indicated that trying to think about Steve was very bad. 1bs indicated several hypotheses (1bs-i through 1bs-iv) about what would happen if Loki tried to tell him about his past with Steve.

Fact 2: Tony’s crew smiled at him. They were very much _his_ crew, and when they smiled, it often turned sad and guilty. Tony didn’t want his crew to feel guilty over him. Tony did want people to get what they deserved. After all, what was the worst that could happen?

Fact 3: Tony had a promise to keep.

Tony’s eyes narrowed as he rattled his fingers against his chest, thinking over this last important question. He slowly began to smile.

“Hey, Goosey, Goosey, Gander,” said Tony, swinging in his harness above the hum of the engine.

“Yes, sir?” said _Jormungandr_.

“What do you say we decide wither _we_ want to wander next?”

“Whatever you say, sir,” said _Jormungandr_.


	9. Wherein Captain Danvers is confused about her friends and her enemies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided I like shorter chapters for motivational purposes and ease of titling.

_Three months ago:_

Carol Danvers didn't know what was between Stark and Commodore Rogers.

Steve Rogers was attending an awards banquet in Athens, Greece, where he was pretending he was allowed to protect his friend. Friend was absolutely an accurate description, at least when it wasn’t the furthest thing from the truth. Standing on guard on the steps of the museum, the crew of the _Avenger_ each wanted to stick their oar in the mess, and Captain Danvers wasn’t even trying to stop them.

“Hydra’s been seen in Athens,” said Jan, fidgeting with her sword belt. “I heard the buzz while I was loitering outside the Acropolis.”

“They’ve been trying to seduce Stark to work for them for decades,” said Jen, “and it never works, and it’s usually hilarious. Did you see him at the awards ceremony?”

“I think he wrapped the trophy in wire as soon as he sat down, yes,”

“I meant after that. When he wrapped himself around something tall, dark, and handsome.”

“Yes!” Jan chortled. “I thought Steve was going to go into convulsions.”

“Our Steve wouldn’t do that, but he might pretend not to care what was going on.”

“But if it’s another Hydra seduction attempt … ”

Two giggling dark-haired men stumbled out of the gala with arms draped across each other's shoulders. One held a bottle. The other held what looked like a glowing pocket watch on a chain. Stark seemed to be trying to explain the details of his watch. He grabbed Carol’s arm and waved the watch in her face, mouth going a hundred kilometers an hour. Then he suddenly stared at her chest. His hand darted out and stole her Purple Gear from off of her ranks of honors and tried to put it in his watch, mumbling something about electroplating aluminum.

“Tony Stark, you give that back right now!” she squawked. She spotted Steve Rogers trailing after them down the stairs. “Has he been like this all night?”

Steve shrugged, grinning wryly. “Only since they wheeled out the champagne fountain.”

She pointed imperiously. “Retrieve my property. I don’t want to get electrocuted.”

“I’m fairly sure he won’t electrocute anyone again today.”

“A minute ago, I was fairly sure I wouldn’t be undressed in public to further the cause of mad science! Steve, do something or I’ll have to hurt him.” She studied the two men with their heads bowed over a blue glow and a screwdriver. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be smiling at this, Steve.”

Steve only shrugged again, leaning against a wall. “Tony can’t get into any trouble I can’t get him out of.”

Carol facepalmed. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”

The other dark haired man made a triumphant noise and pressed a sloppy kiss to Tony’s temple. “Brilliant. Bril-li-li-li-ant.”

“Copper,” said Tony incoherently, looking around and spying Carol again.

She put a hand on his forehead to hold him back. “No way in the solar system.”

He briefly focused on her brass cufflink in front of his face, then dismissed it. “Copper,” he repeated insistently.

“I have copper on my ship,” chuckled the other man. “And silver.”

“To Loki’s ship!” shouted Tony, flinging out a dramatically pointing finger.

“To Loki’s ship!” The other man tried to imitate Tony’s tone and pose, which overturned his balance and resulted in them both half-falling down the flight of stairs and stumbling into the wide Monastiraki Square. Steve looked half-amused and half-resigned as he trailed behind.

Carol rubbed her forehead. “Jan, you pass the word that no one is to leave their posts. We’re responsible for half the governments of Europe here, even though you know and I know what’s most likely to happen.” She shot a glare at Tony Stark. “I’ll provide the Commodore with backup. If you don’t hear from us by dawn, come find us, but don’t jump to conclusions.”

Jess arched an eyebrow at her. “As you said, Captain, we know what’s most likely to happen.”

“Conclusion jumping!” Carol stabbed a finger at Jess, already backing away. “Stop it.” She stretched her legs, running to catch up. “This isn’t your job, Steve.”

“It’s not your job, either, Carol,” Steve said pleasantly.

“Was he a guest at the Elite Gala Hootenanny of the Season? Yes. Did Fury order the crew of the _Avenger_ to guard the Elite Gala Hootenanny of the Season? Yes. Don’t know why, barely care why, but guess what? Protecting him actually is my job. Let’s make him go back to the hotel and tie him up so he can’t blow anything up tonight.”

“Tempting.”

Carol was watching closely, but Steve’s smile seemed completely genuine as he watched the two men laughing in front of him. They seemed to find something uproarious about biology. Carol shuddered and tried not to listen to talk of glial cells and cerebrospinal fluid. “Think we got a bite?”

“Not sure. Probably.”

Tony was louder than usual, half a street ahead of them. They were coming up on a cross street. Carol saw darker shadows on some of the balconies and kept her steps casually even.

Steve nodded in satisfaction. “I’m changing ‘probably’ to ‘definitely.’ Let’s see if we can get someone to question this time. Time to do our duty, Captain.”

The streets were empty and irregularly lit between wealthy houses. Tony and Loki paused just at the edge of a gate, Loki plucking the device from Tony’s hand, and Tony looking up with a faint grin, reaching inside his coat.

Steve and Carol moved forward to flank them.

The shadows on the balconies moved like striking snakes, surrounding the four. They did not expect resistance.

Tony put a hand on Loki’s head and shoved him flat. He pulled a tightly coiled device out of one of his many interior pockets and flung it haphazardly in the middle of the street, where it spent a few minutes ticking happily to itself before one of the fighters swung near it. It reacted to the proximity by eating the fighter.

Loki rolled on his back and blinked upwards, then almost absent-mindedly flung a bolt of magic in the face of another ambusher, blinding her.

Steve spared a glance at the green flare.“We’re sure he’s another Hydra attempt and not just a relatively innocent civilian?”

“Stark wouldn’t do that, would he?” gasped Carol, in between slamming one goon with her own golden bolt, ducking another, and parrying the sword of a third. “Involve a civilian in a trap?”

“He had a lot of champagne,” Steve confessed with a combination right-cross and left back fist.

“Right before a mission?”

“It wouldn’t have looked believable if I’d stopped him.”

“Not what I meant, Cap!”

Half a dozen scattered small charges went off, partially laming several people. Carol strong-armed her opponent until she was rubbing her face in the brick, and fumbled for rope to keep her down. Enough were groaning or unconscious to prevent them from chasing after the five who had realized they were outmatched and turned to run.

Steve moved from Hydra agent to Hydra agent, checking their pulses and their ability to cause more trouble. “Good job as bait, Tony!” He looked up when there was no immediate response. “Tony?” They hunted around the avenue, but Stark had vanished.

Whatever else they were up to, no one was surprised Steve Rogers would go halfway around the world for Tony Stark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a proto-Nazi rant giving me problems, so I'm going to break the chapters up some more. Also, why are Tony Stark's enemies, who were mostly successful businesspeople, wandering around on a submarine? [ducks under a lampshade]


	10. In which Jormungandr takes the next step towards flight, independent thought, and realizing that humans can't be trusted with their own affairs.

“I want to say it,” said Layla.

“ _I_ made it, so _I_ get to say it,” countered Tony.

“You always get to say it. I want to say it this time.”

“You can say it next time there’s something to say,” groused Tony. “The hydrogen envelope integrity test is huge. I get to say it.”

Natasha spoke behind them. Tony hovered protectively between her and the overly large lever connected to the pump. “I think,” said Natasha, “that given the nature of the test, the captain of the ship should say it.”

Loki smirked. “ _Jormungandr_? Go ahead.”

“Yes, Captain,” said _Jormungandr_. Tony stared, betrayed, as the pump bypassed his lever. Natasha gave him a hint of a smile.

“All clear for hydrogen envelope integrity test in, uh, _negative_ eight, nine ten!” shouted Layla quickly.

“Everyone’s already on the fore deck,” said Hela. “That’s pretty clear.”

They watched as the pile of shimmering gold and copper undulated across the well deck, pulling the entire ship to starboard once it began to lift, before it rose above the masts. It caught on the hooks and grapples hanging from the netting, then pulled itself free with no visible tears. With almost a sigh, it finally rolled over, and they began tying down the port flying wires.

 _Jormungandr_ was almost motionless on the waves. She bobbed like a green cormorant surrounded by grey-blue sea, a few miles south of the island of Taiwan, hidden from the cities on the northern side by her tall mountains. Her solar foils were mostly shaded under the balloon, with the effect of a mildly overcast day. They had the wheels rolling slowly for stability as they had raised the envelope, and now merely left them

Tony glared at Natasha and Loki for stealing his big moment. Natasha smiled at him blandly. Loki continued ignoring his sulks. He looked at his timer.

"Aaaand that's seventy-five minutes to full inflation," said Tony. "I can halve that. I can better than halve that. We'll be flying by the Pacific." He rubbed a guy line affectionately. "Some day I'll do the opposite of a flying ship, some sort of … of sea zeppelin."

"We hit the Pacific when we rounded Timor-Leste last week," Amora pointed out.

Tony pouted. He vaguely recalled some sort of celebration. “All right, revised timeline. Tomorrow.” Everything would happen tomorrow, if he could just …. “Full flight tomorrow, if I can just ….” He practically dove below decks, heading for the rudder mechanism.

Amora looked after him somewhat helplessly. Natasha answered her unspoken question. “No, it won’t be safe.”

“Well, you would know, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.” Natasha turned and headed up to the crow’s nest.

Amora followed, determined to have this out, but then was distracted again by the shining metallic bubble hovering just over Loki’s green and gold snake flag. Instead of swaying in bright sunlight, the crow’s nest was now shadowed and shimmering with weird reflections, and the wind caught and cocooned the envelope, blowing over Amora’s face.

“Layla’s with him.”

Amora startled out of her almost mesmerised trance. “Right. Good. Layla can prevent explosions. Do you think he’s been acting a little …?”

“Yes.”

Amora leaned forward. “Yes? And? Is that a problem?”

“Have you noticed how the captain has been acting?”

Amora shrugged. “Loki’s been acting Loki-ish.”

“Yes.”

Frustrated, Amora tried to pick her next words to provoke something more out of the third mate. “If there’s a fight, which side are you going to be on?”

Natasha gazed out at the horizon as _Jormungandr_ swayed on the ocean. “Pretend you believe me when I say ‘yours.’”

~

There were a number of tests to rerun with the hydrogen envelope up, so Layla helped when she could and stayed out of the way when she couldn’t. However used to waiting she was, she was still antsy.

It didn’t help that the huge coppery bubble floating just above the ship was so beautiful. She hadn’t known that.

“What are you planning now, Layla?” murmured the first mate behind her. “More fighting in the streets?”

Layla shrugged and offered an innocent smile. “ _I_ didn’t nearly burn down the city.” She remembered fights popping up all over, some now, some coming soon. She didn’t want this to turn into a fight, so she didn’t mention what she knew.

Hela twitched a shoulder, half ashamed, and fiddled with one of the joints on her mechanical hand. “It was a little straw fire. There was so much fog nothing else could have burned.”

“Sure, Hela. Don’t mess with that if you don’t know what you’re doing; there’s too much danger on board this ship as it is.”

Hela blinked, her clockwork eye whirring a little slower than the real one. “If that’s a problem, I wonder why you let Tony give me the upgrades in the first place.”

Layla chuckled and bumped Hela’s shoulder with her own. “Cause it was only a small straw fire, away from buildings, and the fog was so wet nothing would burn.” She glanced up at Hela in time to see a frown.

“Because you know things before they happen, right? Ever since you stepped on board this ship in Dover, we’ve been chasing exactly what you want, haven’t we?” Hela shook her head and sighed, leaning back to stare at the rippling envelope.

“It’s … not a bad thing?” Layla said hesitantly.

“You shouldn’t be making decisions for us. I’m the first mate, and you’re just the navigator. ” She tilted her head, and the clockwork eye rolled at Layla in its socket.

Layla’s green eyes widened under her tattoo. “That’s the captain’s prerogative, right?”

“The captain doesn’t much like this either. We were supposed to be keeping our heads down. Small time traders, you know? But you make more money smuggling, and none of us were much used to living light. But who cares about a tiny bit of smuggling as long as the bribes are paid? And now Asgard knows where we are and they’ve sent that … you’re too young for me to say the word.”

“Yeah,” said Layla. “I know.

The ship swayed on the billows and the wheel whirled without human intervention. A shudder of protest ran over her rails. Layla bit her lip but kept her hands away from the wheel.

“What’s going on?” asked Hela.

“I think, uh.” At least two arguments were going on already, and if Layla didn’t give Hela a decent answer, it would only start a third, right when they could least afford it. “I’m pretty sure that means trouble.”

~

Tony muttered abstractedly from where he leaned against the wheel, head bowed over his calculations, scribbling notes rapidly. “Okay, J, and give me the aft reading next. Overdriven boiler wheel connection still isn't lining up right. Should be able to get two percent more speed with the wiring that's in place.” He glanced to either side quickly and added, “Slowly, now, J, head a hundred klicks northeast.”

“Belay that, _Jormungandr_. Mr. Stark, what are you up to?”

Tony jerked, almost dropping his paper in the sea. He eyed Loki for a moment and decided to not overtly antagonize a powerful mage. “Stealing your ship.” Thanks, brain-mouth filter. Well, not-antagonizing people rarely worked for him. “I can’t make any progress on the flight until I reinforce the batteries, and I can’t do that unless we head back to port. So we’re heading back to port. Weren’t you calling me Tony?”

“Mr. Stark, unless you want to be locked in the galley under guard, do not attempt to change course." He turned his head a little, watching the wheel whirl under its own power. " _Jormungandr_ , what are you doing?"

 _Jormungandr_ gave a little sway of a shrug, rocking Loki on his excellent sea legs and Tony in his harness. Tony could move quicker and farther with the harness than without, so he kept it one while they were at sea. "Compromising. In the event of contradictory orders, I may make a judgement call.”

“Hey, J, didn’t I place some sort of priority system on whose orders you follow?”

Loki clenched his fists. "Mr. Stark, did you place your orders at a higher priority than mine on mine own ship?” he snarled.

“Did you place your memory at a higher priority than my own in my _brain_?” Tony snapped back. Loki jerked back defensively, then relaxed into nonchalance, but Tony didn’t need a working memory to see through that in a London minute. “Layla confessed, and I don’t think whatever I had to do with it excuses whatever you had to do with it.”

“You know nothing of the matter,” said Loki haughtily. “ _Jormungandr_ , resume our previous course.” He waved an imperious hand, causing visible green light to race across the deck and sink into her wiring.

As the glowing wriggles vanished, Tony’s eyes went huge. “What did you just do to my ship?”

Speaking coldly, Loki laid a possessive hand on the railing. “ _My_ ship, Mr. Stark, or I’ll have you lashed for insubordination. You think I haven’t cocooned her in my magic for years before you leaped aboard and led the _Avenger_ and the _Hydra_ to attempt to hunt us down?”

“Liar!” Tony howled. “Liar. _Avenger_ isn’t chasing you, she’s chasing me, and she’ll leave you alone if I’m not here, she always would have, you said as much that first day. You made me think I was a murderer, that I had to run, but no, they’re my friends. I could have safely left any time. I stayed! I stayed to help make this ship better! She’s a marvel of the oceans, and my home for the last three months, so yes, I do think I’m justified in calling her my ship!”

“You are free to go, Mr. Stark, but if you wish us to carry you to port instead of seeing you over the side, you will keep a civil tongue in your mouth when you speak to your superior officer!”

Tony set his jaw, glaring murder at the captain. “ _Jormungandr_ , ‘ware pirates to port, head east to evade.” _Jormungandr_ turned to starboard at Tony’s command. Tony smirked at Loki. “Safety still takes priority over your magic, I guess.”

“ _Jormungandr_ , do not be foolish, there are no pirates. If there were any real danger, the alarm would have sounded. Obey me, you daft foilship!”

The proximity alarm sounded directly ahead of them.

Captain and engineer jumped, looking at each other with wide eyes, and turned to see the sail of an iron submersible shedding water as it rose from the depths.

A punk-missile tore through the hydrogen envelope, collapsing it into smothering folds. A huge fireball rose above the ship, sucking in all the oxygen and smothering itself, leaving the mainmast a burning brand. The mainsail cracked like ice, shards crashing down to the deck.

Loki waved a hand, attempting to deflect the envelope with orbs of solid magic. Tony swung his harness along the ropes, jumping all the way across the well deck to seize his water-filled bladders and roll them into position.

No one gave the order to divert _Jormungandr_ from a collision course until it was too late.


	11. In which things are not as unpleasant as they could be, prisoners are unnecessary distractions with interesting information, rank is discussed to the exclusion of file, and weapons are not made but threats are.

A dozen pirates scrambled between the listing green foilship half-shrouded in metal, and the scarred punkship. The _Hydra_ could only continue to float if the waves did not rise high enough to flood the long tear gouged in the tops of both her light hull and pressure hull. The pirates swept through the captured ship’s hold, tallying cargo along the way. The _Hydra_ had no room to spare, but she could easily tow a valuable (if half-sunken) ship to a secluded harbor for repair.

They hunted until they were satisfied that they had the entire crew of the _Jormungandr_ lined up in cuffs. For _Jormungandr_ herself, plaintively asking Tony to repair her, the pirates had nothing but scorn. A sentient non-human was worse than a slave if she could not be ruled, but useful if they could work out what Tony and Loki had done to control her.

On the deck, Ty  smiled at Tony as he patted him down. “Oh, Tony, not so cocksure now? I’m sorry to see it. We’ll get that long face of yours fixed right up. Just you listen to the Captain. Listen and obey and everything will be fine.” Tony glared and worked his bruised jaw.

“He should obey _me_ ,” snipped Sunset. “He was going to marry _me_.”

“No he wasn’t,” laughed Ty. “Pejorative planets, Sunset, give it a rest.”

Sunset dropped Loki’s hands and stalked over to shove a pointing finger in Ty’s face. “I was a duchess!”

“A duchess with heavily mortgaged lands,” said Ty. “No, Sunset, the leader is all. The leader is everything. You failed the leader, so here you are. If you truly deserved your state, you would have kept it. Be grateful you still live.”

 _Not thinking about it, not thinking about it_ , chanted Tony to himself, desperately trying to keep his mind on important matters like staying alive and escaping, instead of sending himself blue because he wondered about his past. And he didn’t. As it happened, months of repeated near-unconsciousness were good training for curtailing his wilder flashbacks.

Sunset pulled on Loki’s pocket watch chain. What she pulled out wasn’t a pocket watch.

“That’s mine!” snapped Loki, snatching at the glowing disk.

“Ah, ah ah!” said Sunset. “It would be such a shame if we were forced to cut any magically twitchy fingers off, wouldn’t it?”

 _That’s glowing blue, too, just like my scarping brain_ , Tony noted, and would have said it aloud if he hadn’t been sharply reminded that opening his mouth right now might be a bad idea. It scarping hurt. The pirates had not been scarping gentle.

Layla, head ducked, half-hiding behind Hela, whispered, “You can’t keep us.” Okay, so there were worse things than opening his mouth, like anyone else opening her mouth. Tony made a desperate noise at Layla to shut her up and hoped she knew what he meant.

Sunset laughed. “Listen to the child! She thinks she has any say in the matter. Let me show you what we have to work with. The glory of our ship is well worth the glory of our cause. You would be wise to be more afraid.” And she swung at Layla with a casual backhand.

Tony faked a stumble. Sunset hit Tony right on the existing bruise, and he whimpered, then ground out, “Anyone who asks for fear loses my respect.”

“Is your respect a currency I am interested in?” she asked, looking down her nose at him.

“I haven’t said no yet, have I?”

They looked at Tony narrowly for long enough that he wondered how many times he might have said no in a previous memory. Then Ty said, “Let’s get them below. We have repairs to make before we can get to persuading Mr. Stark to join our cause.”

“Persuade? You fool. We don’t bargain with the merchant class.”

“My dear Sunset, there are more means of persuasion than mere bargaining.”

Tony grunted a protest and jolted his jaw again, which made _Jormungandr_ whine at him for repairs and reassurance, which made some of the more superstitious goons hurry to obey Tiberius in an effort to get away from the speaking ship. “Persuade away. Looking forward to it. Honestly.”

~

The sardine can that was the _Hydra_ had one long hall going down the center that was narrower than a Taiwanese alley and forced Loki to stoop to avoid hitting his head. The fore and aft hull were triply reinforced for ramming, but every open door showed glass portholes, also reinforced for depth. He counted beds lining the hall on either side of a grey metal galley.

If Hydra slept in shifts, the _Hydra_ carried over a hundred crew.

If the officers wanted to convince Tony, they weren’t moving to torture yet. Loki wasn’t sure how long that would last. For now, they talked at him.

“You _defined_ the arms race, my dear,” said Ty. “Success can be measured directly by who has the greatest access to your old weapons, and will be for decades to come. Give me six months, Tony, and we can push that time limit back by a century.” His eyes glowed with mercenary fervor.

“I’m not your dear, darling, and I wouldn’t be if I could, but hey, if that’s your thing, apparently there are a few hundred people on this wreck who think the end justifies the means.” Tony babbled. Without something to fiddle with in his hands, he was unable to resist twisting his wrists in the shackles. Loki worried he might agree to upgrade their torpedoes just to get his hands on a folding ruler. At least their hands were still in front of them.

Most of the _Hydra_ was focused on Tony and the officers who flanked him. The engineer’s mad rambling was almost as good a distraction as his explosions, even if he was impersonating a person who had no idea how to link magic and electricity. Loki didn’t actually see Layla’s hand dip into Ophelia’s pocket, but he knew, from personal experience, what that slow creep followed by the almost invisible dart of her fingers meant.

While Loki planned how to keep Hydra from searching Layla again, Tony threw himself into being as big a distraction as his bruised mouth could muster.

“I need to make _Jorm_ into a glass-bottomed boat. She’d be gorgeous gliding along like that. Exactly what a small trader needs, the ability to see straight through to to sides and into the hold, proving there’s nothing we’re hiding. Incidentally, we’re not hiding anything. Certainly nothing that makes Jorm a danger to you if she gets unhappy with not having Mommy and Daddy to sing her to sleep. Don’t know what I was thinking, building such a moody ship. Did you disable all the turrets? There’s about fifty fully functional, but the ones with only partly functional guns will be harder to dismantle safely. This bunch of whiners will tell you I was always making things explode, but it wasn’t even once a day! Motion sensors are funny things, it’s a surprised I haven’t blown my hand off yet.”

Clever Stark. There _had_ been a few explosions even as they waited above for the sweep to finish. Now they would be even more wary of touching anything unfamiliar. Loki wondered if they’d managed to open the false hull.

“Cooperate, Tony, and you’ll see her that much sooner. Dear.” Ty smirked. “You need parts for those partly functional guns? Hydra can provide. Listen to the captain. No one has to get hurt.”

“Yeah, cause ramming us, boarding us, beating us up, and chaining us up doesn’t hurt a bit. Glad we cleared that up, I think I’ll leave now. So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu.”

They stopped in front of an open door. The dungeon section was just as cramped as the rest of the ship, with holding cells for far more people than crewed one small foilship. “Why don’t you rest a bit, Tony? Take a load off and think about whether you’ve really got any alternatives.” Handcuffs were removed, and they were shoved inside and left.

After they had been chained, mauled, manhandled, pistol-whipped, stabbed, hauled into the soggy depths of a third-class submersible, shoved into a cell, and insulted, they were ignored for over five hours. Tony was busy cataloging resources and discarding dangerous escape plans, but he could keep time while doing that.

Hela got a cell and an extra guard to herself. Though the Hydra goons stole her hand and her leg, they were afraid to touch her eye, and could not risk leaving her alone.

Natasha hushed them every time they tried to talk. She stood closest to the barred door, listening intently to the conversations of everyone who passed.

Well into the night watch, the cell door creaked open. Creak? It was almost a groan, the hinges ruined by long exposure to sea air. Tony itched for graphite to quiet it. Layla jerked awake. _Hydra_ ’s crew dragged them out and shoved them up along the narrow corridor running down the center of the submersible.

“Don’t damage the goods,” snapped Captain Sarkissian.

“You people are obsessed,” groaned Tony. He relaxed a little. They weren’t going to hurt anyone too badly today if they were keeping them together.

“Yes,” said the captain, smiling. “Isn’t it inspirational? You know what it’s like to have that sort of drive, the motivation to make a change in the world. All we need to do is channel your drive. And trust me, Mr. Stark, that will not be a problem.” She ran a cool eye over the six of them.

“You don’t know what you want. Tell me what you want. You don’t even know, do you? Talk to me, Tony. We can make a deal Tony. Come with me, Tony. Remember the water, Tony?”

Tony stared back blankly. He wouldn’t remember the water. He knew there was something about water, something beyond the ocean, but he didn’t have to remember because all that was available, was blue.

Captain Sarkissian folded her hands behind her back, pacing in front of the line of her prisoners. “Mr. Stark, you epitomize the tyranny of the lower classes, refusing to accept that your betters see and understand far more than you. Are these people valuable to you, Mr. Stark? They’re worthless to me. A ship’s captain might be a gentleman if he’ll be useful, but the others are pawns. Will you throw your pawns away, Mr. Stark? What will you give me for them, Mr. Stark?”

Tony squeezed his eyes shut. Political rhetoric, threat, threat, posturing, more threats. The Jormungand-ers might not be innocents, but he couldn’t let them be killed. He swallowed and started to open his mouth to say time, effort, thought, resources — he could promise a lot if it would give him the opportunity to blow this woman and her ship out of the water.

When Loki interrupted. “Dear Ophelia, you speak as if you think you know the lines of authority present on my ship. Does _Hydra_ ’s lowest engineer outrank her captain, that you ignore me this way? Mr. Stark, stand down. This is not your decision until your superiors have finished negotiating.”

Ophelia whirled on Loki, seizing him by the neck and slamming him into the wall of the ship. He forced out a hoarse laugh. “What are you, Captain, but a petty criminal? Stark at least has wealth to speak for his value.”

“Who am I?” Loki waited a long moment, then shrugged. “No one who need concern you. After all, Tony Stark would pick just any ship on which to try his new ideas, wouldn’t he?”

Sudden doubt flashed in Ophelia’s eyes.

“Mongolian High Command thinks Hydra is a small player who can get very little benefit from royal hostages in the South China Sea,” Natasha said suddenly, “and that Tony Stark is a snob who only ever uses the best.”

“The Asgardian Army Council concurs,” added Hela.

“You think to trick me, you chattel,” Ophelia spat.

“Me? Never,” said Natasha. “After all, I’m just a petty criminal who has never read secret dispatches. I couldn’t possibly have the subtlety to fool someone like you, Captain Sarkissian.”

“Don’t look at me for subtlety. I worked my way through the ranks with blunt force and magic,” said Hela.

Ophelia’s eyes darted around, seeking a way to regain control over the situation. “Remove them. There’s only one person I need to talk to now.”

Tony scrambled for a way to stall. “I’m not making weapons today.”

Ophelia gave Tony a pitying look. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Stark. Fortunately, we have other options.” She dangled something in front of him.

It looked a bit like a pocket watch. It was glowing blue. Tony swallowed.


	12. In which unpleasantness is contingent upon competence, some people are very competent, some are not, and boom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd.

Tony leaned against the wall of the submersible’s interrogation room, which probably doubled as food preparation, and watched Hydra go through two hours of frustration.

Neither Ophelia nor Tiberius could make the glowing blue pocket device work, and Tony couldn’t have helped them even if he’d wanted to, which he emphatically did not. He still made suggestions. He was especially proud when he got them to electrocute themselves trying to enact the opposite of his advice.

It was kind of funny.

He wondered if trying and failing to make the pocketwatch work increased or decreased the likelihood of … 

 … unpleasantness … 

Tony had several specific ideas about what ‘unpleasantness’ meant, but they tended to make his mind go a little blue around the edges. He didn’t want to think about why a memory-based disorder wouldn’t let him think about torture. He wanted to forgive and forget. It was just that forgetting was the problem in the first place.

In the end, they shoved him back in the cell with the others.

They barely understood Tony’s engineering. They had no clue when it came to Loki’s magic. Not a single magician on the submersible was outside the prison.

On the other hand, the foilship smugglers were surrounded by hundreds of enemies and at least ten miles of ocean. The cells weren’t what was keeping them in place. There was less privacy on a hundred-man war-submersible than on tiny _Jormungandr_.

Hydra was putting their reliance more on that and the sheer number of people than the security of the cells. If the Jormungand-ers did get out of the cells, where would they go? Even if the _Hydra_ couldn’t submerge after the battle, the middle of the ocean was no place to make a run for it.

So a few hours and a change of watch later, no one with any say in the matter minded when Sunset Bain wandered in and left the door unlocked behind her. It was less crowded than _Jormungandr_ ’s galley, but squashed like pumpkins for a berth. Sunset rested her head on Tony’s shoulder and sighed. “Remember when you gave me everything?”

Tony winced. “Was I trying to pay you off so you’d leave me alone?”

Loki failed to suppress a laugh; he was sitting regally on the floor in the center of the wall.

“I’m betting some theft of property might have been involved,” said Layla, moving away from suspiciously near the door. “I mean, Tony was drunk out of his mind on inventing and champagne when he signed a check to the Captain. It doesn’t matter what I know or don’t know, I am still impressed by the size of that check. Of course, we seem to have spent most of it on things you wanted, Tony, so how much was really theft?”

“I didn’t get to pick up my new Tesseract,” pointed out Tony. “Just as well, given current kidnappings. Am I double-kidnapped, or does one kidnapping cancel the other? Do you think we might have been better off if we hadn’t left Taipei? Possibly? Maybe staying would have been a good idea? Did you think of that, Captain?”

“I think Kidnapping Number One stopped being a kidnapping when you refused to stay in Cape Town. I’m still mad you were going to leave us, by the way. You know, we could have stayed in Taipei and worked things out,” said Layla, poking Loki in the ribs with a self-satisfied smile. “ _Avenger_ would have been reasonable eventually. You would have just needed to speak with your family. You know, the royal house of Asgard.”

“Silence!” snarled Loki.

“What?” Sunset sat up straight, staring at Loki.

“Is now the time, Layla?” growled Hela from across the narrow hall. She met Amora’s eyes, nodding slowly. Amora shook her head, then nodded yes, then shook her head no again. Natasha didn’t move, but she frowned, which from her counted for more than a shout. “On land in Europe, our titles might outrank Stark’s money, but that means nothing in Chinese waters.”

“It counts for something to proto-fascists,” said Layla.

“Proto-fascist,” said Natasha. “Explain.”

“It’s related to the Divine Right of Kings. A certain type of ideology which thinks if you’re in charge, then you deserve to be in charge. Bain here has been stripped of her title by a person with a superior title. She’s not in charge. Has anyone else in this cell been stripped of their title?”

“You’re prisoners,” said Sunset with a note of panic. “You can’t be in charge.”

“Layla,” said Natasha, “do you know if anyone on this ship outranks Prince Loki?”

“I do know,” chirped Layla, “and the answer is, by their own standards, no.”

“You’re prisoners,” Sunset repeated in a high, panicky voice, standing up and backing toward the door. They all, including the guards loitering in the hall, looked at her without expressions. “So act like it!”

“There is something so compelling about accepting the truth about yourself and your place in the world,” said Natasha.

“I know I can’t look away,” muttered Tony.

~

Layla Miller looked closely at the faces of each person who passed the cells until the woman she was waiting for passed by.

“The Maggia Masque says hello,” she whispered suddenly. Giuletta Nefaria hesitated, almost stumbling, then flicked a harried glance in Layla’s direction and briskly continued on her way to her duties. Layla waited five minutes, and when she heard nothing unusual, she smiled.

Layla had stolen a key from the first mate’s pocket. Layla had the attention of a sympathetic _Hydra_ officer. Layla knew where Captain Sarkissian was keeping the MRI-Tesseract she had helped build, which was far more complicated than anyone else suspected. She had just a few more things on her to-do list, including crying tomorrow night. Knowing what was coming helped, but it didn’t help that much.

When, midmorning, Sunset Bain came to try to suborn Tony, Layla knew what to say to get a reaction. And when she left the door unlatched behind her (thanks to a bit of cloth Layla had shoved into the latch), taking half the guards with her, Layla knew they had almost three minutes before anyone else would check on them.

Natasha took out four guards in less than one minute.

Layla opened Hela’s cell with the key. Loki and Amora hoisted her arms over their shoulders. “Do we have time to get the hand and leg?”

“They’re in storage room forty-two,” said Layla, pointing. “Sneaky goes that way. Nat and I won’t be seen. The MRI is in the captain’s cabin. Deadly goes that way. Hela, sorry, you need to hide until you can move faster. Amora, stay with her.”

They nodded and followed their navigator’s direction.

On the four hundred twelfth step down the corridor, Layla knew the guard at a junction was looking the wrong direction as they passed a locked door. She opened it, slipped inside, and opened two water barrels, letting the water slosh out to join leakage from the battle with _Jormungandr_. In seconds, she and Nat were inside, waiting three and a half minutes for the search to move on.

Two minutes later, they heard the first explosion and dropped from the ceiling into storage room forty-two.

~

“Settle down, Hela,” said Amora

“Never! You settle down. I want to punch something,” said Hela, bouncing on one foot and watching for more pirates to come and find out that their cells, a few feet away, were empty.

“Settle down enough that I don’t shoot you in the head!” Amora grinned, lighting her face from below with a show of hand fire.

“Don’t pretend you’re so fancy. I used to be able to do that, too.”

“You want me to leave you here and go help the others?”

“No, no, you make magical mischief while I play helpless. Actually, wait … ”

Later, a team of Hydra came down the hall. Their leader pointed out Hela, who was apparently unable to stand or ever move. They laughed until they came opposite her, ignoring the open door for the easy prey.

Hela’s fist shot out in a solid crotch hit before Amora even started throwing magic from concealment. They didn’t have time to get bored before Layla and Natasha were back with Hela’s body parts.

~

Tony had picked up a toolbox. “This looks like it’ll come in handy,” he said as he swung it at a nameless Hydra minion who was now also faceless.

“Make more noise, if you would, Stark,” said Loki, producing green flashbangs from his fingertips and flinging them at any who rushed down the corridor at them. “We’re the distraction.”

“They didn’t exactly let me keep the trinitrotoluene in my pocket.”

“Please tell me you weren’t carrying TNT in your pocket, Stark.”

“It was inert! Ish. Inertish. I didn’t blow up when I got cut down from the mast, did I? See? Perfectly safe. Safer than being around you.”

“The _Hydra_ is chasing you, not me. We would have been safe without you. We probably saved you from Hydra in Athens. We definitely did in Dakar, Tuulada, twice in India … ”

“And now we’re unsaved, so, by definition, unsafe to be here. Whoops!” Tony ducked a punch and tripped.

Loki knocked his opponent out and helped Tony up. He backed Tony through a door into a cleaning closet and closed it all but a crack, ignoring the unconscious bodies blocking the way. “Fortunately, this seacraft is not constructed to make it easy for a large force to attack a smaller one within her walls.”

“So, Robinson Crusoe, if I ever knew anything about fighting pirates, I’ve forgotten it,” said Tony, sifting through storage containers.

“Not now, Tony! Do not try to remember and faint and leave me to drag your carcass the rest of the way through this tin can,” Loki growled.

“It’s not fainting! Do you not know how to stop it or do you just not _want_ to stop it? Are you on their side?”

“Plague it, I need the MRI device to bypass the block, and it doesn’t always work. This is not the time for you to black out!” said Loki. “Can’t you do as you did in Dakar?”

“Blue out,” corrected Tony, just to be contrary. “I need materials to make hundreds of small charges again. Ooo!” He found some improperly stored chemicals. Some midshipman was going to get a write-up if they survived. Or maybe Hydra just executed people who left strong acids on the same shelf as bases. “And we’re in luck this minute! Well, I am. You get the pleasure of seeing me go chemical on this ship without being able to drag me away from the boiler.” He felt a growing urge to cackle.

“If you’re going to blow something up, I encourage you to do it now,” said Loki. “Also, don’t kill me if you can avoid it. I plan to take this entire washtub down with me if I have to die.”

“Here, Albatross, put those long limbs to use and shove this in the ceiling,” said Tony, dumping chemicals in a bucket, splicing a fuse from a mop head, and hunting for something to use as a flint. “It won’t put her out of commission, but it’ll keep us on the surface longer while they try to repair the hole.”

Loki snapped his fingers and produced a flame, which he touched to Tony’s fuse. “Let us move onward.” He timed opening the door to slam it in another pirate’s face.

Boom.

As they ducked burning debris down the corridor, Loki said, “There aren’t enough people.” He turned to lay ice traps down behind them, sparkling blue-white barricades flowing from his palms and almost obscuring the slippery black patches.

“I was just thinking there were way too many!”

“With a ship this size, we should have encountered twice as many. As long as the Captain’s quarters are clear, whatever is occupying them can only be to our advantage.”

“And the blue glowing pocket thingy can give me my memory back?” asked Tony. Loki was quiet for too long, so Tony had to push. “Can it pull any other tricks, or is it just a useless ornament that we shouldn’t be risking our lives for? Like say, the fact that part of it’s a Tesseract. I’m not mad. If you didn’t like me fiddling with the boiler, just think what I could have done with your toy.” Tony twisted another charge into shape and flung it over his shoulder. “Oh, bilgewater, Albatross, yes, I am mad, and as soon as we’re not in danger any more I’m going to yell at you so much!”

“Tony, I’ve been giving you your memory back this whole time! Every time you forgot and I reminded you with the device, you remembered. You remember Miss Potts, yes? What do you remember?”

“Uh. Pepper? Sort of. She exists? And something about strawberries for some reason. She’s important. For lots of reasons which I can’t quite grasp, but based on our interactions I can guess.”

“And before Cape Town?”

“Before you pulled out the thingy and reintroduced us, you mean? Yeah, nothing. And. And any friends who I needed to contact was exactly the sort of thing I was trying to remember. Well, and basic physical principles, but I was able to work most of those out without needing to remember. And except for the fact that I was trying my best _not_ to remember, because having your mind go all blue and blank? Not the most fun I’ve ever had.” Tony flicked a glance in both directions before sticking a bomb to a random door for the sake of chaos and destruction. “Neither is this, but if we survive it might go in my diary as the best day I remember after Dakar.”

“Remind me to remind you that explosives can be dangerous,” said Loki. “And until then, blow this door up, too.” It had a little mahogany and gilt finishing, clearly the best room on board. Tony obligingly slapped a small explosive on the latch, then stood back.

The MRI obligingly rested in an easily-opened sea chest, where they found it after a minimum of searching and incendiaries. Tony turned it over, getting a good look at it for the first time. He could see how to make another, but how to improve upon it? That might take a few hours. “So. This is the rest of my life. Following you for the dribbles of my past you decide to dole out.”

Loki plucked it from Tony’s grasp. “If you choose. When I faced a similar dilemma, I rather chose to forge my own future. Which are you better at, Engineer?” With his face lit by blue from below, Loki asked, “Do you remember your first invention?”

“It … ” It had been an improved waterwheel for a cloth mill to better take advantage of the river’s power. The toolbox slipped from his fingers, and Tony jumped, then scrambled to pick up the scattered tools and stuff them back in. He wasn’t looking at the door, swinging on its hinges, when he heard a female voice.

“That will do excellently for an initial demonstration.”

Tony turned just in time to see Captain Sarkissian shoot Loki in the back.

“Thank you, Captain Loki, for your service,” said Captain Sarkissian to the limp form on the ground, and turned to smile possessively at Tony, only to be met by him swinging a wrench.

"Don't you know," Tony shouted, slamming the wrench into Ophelia Sarkissian's head, "that it's bad luck," SLAM! "to kill," SLAM! "an albatross?" The wrench snapped in two on the last slam, and Tony glared at the shoddy steel. It was better than glaring at Loki’s body. Loki wasn’t supposed to get hurt. No one was supposed to get hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit or blame for the inspiration for his work go to: Horns of Mischief (Rinelin) for ["Veiled Truths,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2136147) which started the plot bunny (even if I moved it in time and space and added a ship's crew); and ["Blinding,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/977254/chapters/1922634) which, besides being an incredible exploration of time, helped inspire how the Tony-control works before I slid off in other directions.


End file.
